Assessment of Level of Knowledge of Sepsis Among Nursing Students
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Background: Sepsis is a life-threatening organ dysfunction resulting from a dysregulated host response to infection. Early recognition is important in nursing practice, yet knowledge among undergraduate nursing students remains incompletely characterized in Pakistan. Objective: To assess sepsis knowledge among nursing students during the early stages of a Bachelor of Science in Nursing programme. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study included 160 full-time female second- and fourth-semester BSN students at the College of Nursing, University of Child Health Sciences, Lahore. Participants were selected using simple random sampling from a sampling frame of 273 students. Data were collected using the Determinants of Sepsis Knowledge questionnaire and analysed descriptively using frequencies and percentages. Results: Overall, 89.4% had heard of sepsis. Correct responses varied substantially across knowledge items: 68.1% recognized the need for immediate emergency response, whereas only 21.9% correctly rejected sepsis as an intense allergic reaction and 17.5% correctly rejected the assertion that it is specifically caused by multidrug-resistant hospital organisms. Chills and fever were recognized by 85.0%, shortness of breath by 66.3%, and tachycardia by 64.4%, compared with 48.1% for disorientation and 45.0% for hypotension. Aggregate item-level accuracy was 40.6% for general sepsis knowledge and 51.9% for symptom recognition. Conclusion: Students demonstrated high awareness but heterogeneous item-level knowledge, with important deficiencies in conceptual understanding, causation, epidemiology, and recognition of selected manifestations
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