Knowledge, attitude and practice of nurses regarding early detection, caring and support of men with prostate cancer at health facilities in Windhoek, Namibia: A mixed method study

The aim of the study was to determine, explore and assess the knowledge, attitude and practices of nurses regarding early detection, caring and support of men with prostate cancer at health facilities in Windhoek, Namibia. Prostate cancer is the second most frequent cancer diagnosis in men and the fifth leading cause of death worldwide. Nurses have been reported in the literature to offer minimum support for prostate cancer patients. The same trend seems to be evident in Windhoek and it's not clear what could be the reason for this discrepancy hence the researcher was interested in knowing the knowledge, practice and attitude of nurses towards prostate cancer care services. The study adopted a mixed research, convergent parallel design to understand the research problem. For objective 1 and 2, a quantitative approach and descriptive design were used to determine knowledge and practice using self-administered structured questionnaires. A sample of 105 respondents was selected randomly and data was analysed using SPSS. For objective 3, a qualitative descriptive design was used to explore attitude from 10 purposively selected participants using semi-stmctured interviews. The findings of the study revealed that respondents had a low level of knowledge 86 (81.9% ), but they had good practices 54 (51.4%). Participants expressed positive attitudes towards early detection, negative attitudes towards caring and negative attitudes towards support. The findings further reported health facility (P-value=0.003) and health status (P-value= 0.039) to be a significant predictor of practice. Moreover, the study revealed that the level of knowledge was not significantly associated with practice P-value= 0.696. The researcher recommended ongoing in-service training with well-stipulated outcomes on prostate cancer services to improve nurses' knowledge. Additionally, the researcher recommended the development of a model to facilitate the effective provision of prostate cancer care services in Namibia

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Namibia

Year dc:date.issued

2021

Author dc:creator

• Shikalepo, Fransina Ndapewa

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Amukugo, HJ

• Explore and assess the knowledge
• Early detection
• Prostate cancer
• Namibia
• Windhoek
• Cancer diagnosis
• Health facilities
• University of Namibia

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11070/4066

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.unam.edu.na:11070/4066