Knowledge and Attitudes of Medical and Paramedical Staff Regarding Cardiac Rehabilitation Program at Al-Najaf Center for Cardiac Surgery and Trans Catheter Therapy

Abstract

Background: Cardiac rehabilitation is very essential for patients who suffer from cardiac diseases to improve their quality of life during pre and post hospitalization period.

Aim: This study aimed to assess the knowledgeand attitudes of medical and paramedical staff on cardiac rehabilitation program (CRP), and relate the relationship between socio-demographic characteristics, qualifications and years of experience with their knowledge and attitudes on CRP.

Subjects and Methods: A descriptive; cross sectional study conducted at Al-Najaf Center for Cardiac Surgery and Trans Catheter Therapy, included 200 participants (33 medical staff and 167 paramedical staff) from 6th December-2020 ending on 17th March-2021.

Study instrument: To collect information about Knowledge and Attitudes of Medical and Paramedical Staff, the researcher develops a structured questionnaire depends on the previous studies (Kellar,2019; Kumudah et.al.,2020) and modified after reviewing by the supervisors and the 14 experts. All observations of the supervisors and the experts to evaluate the questionnaire contents, clarity, and adequacy were taken into consideration to achieve the present goals of the study.The study instrument consists of a total of 45 questions under 3 sections; the first section has 5 questions to analyse the respondents’ socio-demographic details, second section has 16 questions to analyse the respondents’ knowledge on CRP and the last section consists of 24 questions to analyse the attitudes of respondents’ on CRP.

Results: The current study was conducted on 200 medical and paramedical staff with the mean ± SD of their ages was 32.7±8.07 years ranging from 21 to 54 years. The highest percentage (53.0%) were from the 20-31 years age group and most of them were males (65.5%) with their level of education of Baccalaureate (45.5%), and Years of experience 1-5 (39.5%), while the highest percentage of professional level was (46.0%) from Nurses.

Conclusions: The current study concluded that the knowledge of medical and paramedical staff about the cardiac rehabilitation program in this institution is weak, but the majority of them have a fair attitudes about CRP and they have bigger desire and more willing to apply this program at their organization.

Recommendation:Workshops and training courses regarding CRP should be planned, developed and implemented to increase the knowledge level of healthcare providers and to identify educational deficiencies among them.