Role of newborn nurses in newborn feeding

The aim of this study was to determine the function of newborn nurses given at newborn feeding in the newborn units of public hospitals in Konya, Turkey, besides it was also to determine the effect of nurses which had short-term training, aka education, in practice and in theory.

This was an experimental study conducted with a total of 50 newborn nurses between 15 September 2004 and 30 February 2005. In collecting the data, a survey sheet including the demographic characteristics of newborn nurses and their knowledge on newborn feeding was applied, along with another remark form that shows clinical practices about newborn feeding.

Considering the nurses, their knowledge mean score 'after education (AE)' was calculated to be 72.4 ± 10.4, which was significantly higher than that of 'before education (BE)', which was 58.0 ± 9.3, (p < 0.05). Likewise, the implementation mean score of these nurses AE (57.2 ± 4.9) was also found higher than the mean score BE (54.4 ± 5.0) (p < 0.05). There were statistically significant differences in the posteducation mean scores of nurses for the number of children they had, and for the hospital they work.

In this study, it was determined that the nurses had knowledge deficits about newborn feeding both in theory and practice, but after a short educational program on newborn feeding their theoretical and practical knowledge had shown increases.