[Assessment of nurses' understanding of tuberculin testing at a general hospital]

The last ten years have seen a resurgence of tuberculosis, yet little information is available about the implementation of tuberculin testing and consistency in its use and interpretation.

To evaluate knowledge of tuberculin testing among hospital nurses.

A questionnaire on various aspects of the tuberculin test was administered to registered nurses assigned to various services of our university hospital. The questions were grouped by sections (techniques for administering the test, reading the results and interpreting them).

One hundred thirty-five nurses were surveyed; 127 (94%) answered all the questions. Overall, only 42% responded to 10 or more of the 14 items on the questionnaire. By sections, questions related to technique of administration, reading the tuberculin test result and interpreting it were answered correctly by 46%, 11% and 7% of the subjects, respectively. Only two variables were independently related to the number of correct responses: 1) working on a medical ward at the time of the survey or 2) administering the test more than once a week.

This study confirms that hospital nurses' understanding of tuberculin testing is unacceptable. A team of professionals skilled in tuberculin testing should be designated at every level of the health care system to assure the reliability of tests performed for clinical or research purposes.