Abstract:

Background: Nasogastric tube feeding is a very vital among patients with conditions that cannot allow them to feed orally. They are also used for drug administration. There are significant morbidity and mortality in developing countries due to ignorance, negligence and placement error during nasogastric feeding. Desired precautions are not taken into consideration by care takers when feeding their patients during nursing and this leads to occurrence of various complications of nasogastric tube use such as aspiration pneumonia, diarrhoea, constipation, and tube occlusion, displacement of the tube, abdominal cramping, nausea and vomiting, delayed gastric emptying, serum electrolyte, imbalance, increased respiratory quotient, fluid overload, and hyperosmolar dehydration. These complications are serious and fatal if they are not identified and managed earlier and knowledge about handling nasogastric tube will not be given to them.

Aim: The study aimed to assess the knowledge, attitude and practices towards the nasogastric tube uses among the caregivers at Sengerema designated district hospital.

Methodology: This was a hospital based descriptive cross-sectional study which was conducted in October 2021 involving a total of 101 caregivers.

Result: The study involved 101 participants with mean age 31.4752 [19-49] and median age is 32. Majority of participants 70 (69.3%) have ever heard about nasogastric feeding during current admission despite that all participants were confident help their patients feed via the tube. Despite the information provided in regard to NGT feeding, majority of participants 53(52.2%) did not feel comfortable to have their patients have NGT inserted or feed via the tube, 56 (55.4%) afraid and had belief that can caused chocking and difficult breathing to their patients. Some respondents had positive attitude towards nasogastric tube feeding to their patients where; 55 (54.5%) would allow any of their family members to be fed via a nasogastric tube, 54 (53.5%) would accept to be fed with NGT if they were patient as part of inpatient management. Regarding to the practices about 61(60.4%) were taking precaution during feeding their patient and the remaining 40(39.6%) they didn’t. About 71(70.3%) washed their hands before and after feeding their patients.

Conclusion; findings from this study reveals that there is limited knowledge on NGT indications and use. The attitude and practice on NGT feeding and general use remains low at Sengerema hospital from this study.