Development of nursing practice guideline for preventing birth hypoxia of newborns

Abstract

Birth asphyxia or Neonatal hypoxia or Hypoxic-Ischemic Encephalopathy (HIE) is the major problem that cause death or disability in newborns. Thus, its result leads to the loss of family and society. This research and development aimed to develop and study the results of using nursing guidelines to prevent birth asphyxia in newborns which was divided into 3 phrases: 1) the development of nursing practice guidelines, 2) the quality inspection and the trial of nursing practice guidelines, and 3) the evaluation results of nursing practice guidelines usage. The sample group consisted of 9 registered nurses and 496 of pregnant women who gave birth in the delivery room of Phayao Hospital. The sampling of pregnant women was divided into 2 groups: 1) the 248 of control group was treated by using the regular nursing care and 2) the 248 of experimental group was treated by using the developed nursing guidelines. The research tools were the nursing practice guidelines for the prevention of birth asphyxia in newborns and the data collection tools such as the personal information record, the feasibility assessment form of implementing the guidelines, and the assessment form of nurse satisfaction. Data were analyzed using the descriptive statistics and the independent sample t-test. The results showed that: 1) the developed nursing practice guidelines for the prevention of birth hypoxia in newborns, 2) the incidence of birth asphyxia in the experimental group was significantly lower than the control group (p<.01), 3) the feasibility of implementing the guidelines was found 96% at a high level, and 4) the nurses' satisfaction was at a high level. (\mu= 4.20, \rho=0.67) Nurses caring for newborns should implement the developed nursing practice guidelines in order to increase efficiency of the prevention of birth asphyxia in newborns.