Nurses’ knowledge of stroke-related oropharyngeal dysphagia in the Eastern Cape, South Africa

BACKGROUND: Early identification of stroke-related oropharyngeal dysphagia (OPD) using screening by nurses can prevent adverse patient outcomes in lower middle-income countries. Nurses are essential in the OPD management team and should ideally be able to screen and prioritise dysphagia management in stroke patients. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this research was to describe nurses' practices related to identification and management of patients with stroke-related OPD. METHODS: Qualified nurses from various healthcare levels in the Eastern Cape, South Africa were invited to complete a previously published hard copy survey on the signs and symptoms, complications and management of stroke-related OPD. A sample of 130 participants completed the survey. RESULTS: The mean scores of correct responses for each section were: 8.7/13 (66.7%) for signs and symptoms, 4.7/10 (47.3%) for complications and 3.8/7 (54.2%) for management practices. Statistically, there were no differences between the levels of healthcare for the signs and symptoms section and the complications section. Regarding management of OPD, secondary-level (S) nurses demonstrated significantly better knowledge than primary-level (P) and tertiary-level (T) nurses (S-P: p = 0.022; S-T: p = 0.010). Secondary-level nurses also scored significantly higher across all three sections (S-P: p = 0.044; S-T: p = 0.025) than those at the other levels. CONCLUSIONS: The study found that nurses across all levels of healthcare had only moderate knowledge regarding identification and management of stroke-related OPD. Interdisciplinary collaboration between nurses and speech-language therapists may improve nurses' knowledge in identification and management of stroke-related OPD in lower middle-income settings such as South Africa.