Abstract

Aims: Nurses need to have considerable knowledge of and great competence in carefully assessing and correctly diagnosing patients' eye problems. This study aimed to evaluate intensive care nurses' clinical competence in eye care. Instrument & Methods: In the cross-sectional descriptive study, ten hospitals were selected by cluster sampling of 4 cities in Iran in 2015. Four hundred thirty-two intensive care nurses were recruited by convenience sampling. The Eye Care Competence Inventory was employed for evaluating nurses' eye care knowledge, attitude, and practice. Data were analyzed by SPSS 18 using independent-samples t-test and the Pearson correlation. Findings: The means of participating nurses' eye care knowledge, attitude, and practice were 43.3±14.86, 84.56±11.61, and 73.11±17.17, respectively. Nurses' work experience positively correlated with their eye care knowledge and attitude. There also was a significant positive correlation between nurses' age and their eye care attitude. Finally, knowledge had significant positive correlations with attitude and practice (p<0.001). Conclusion: Nurses' knowledge in eye care of ICU patients was moderate, and their attitude and practice were good. Accordingly, developing and implementing continuing education programs for promoting their eye care knowledge, attitude, and practice is strongly recommended. © 2021, Tarbiat Modares University. All rights reserved.