Level of Knowledge About Alzheimer's Disease Among Nursing Staff in Suzhou and its Influencing Factors

Background: With the rapid aging process, an increasing number of individuals will be living with dementia worldwide. A good mastery of knowledge about Alzheimer's Disease (AD) by medical staff has been reported to improve the outcome of patients with AD, making it necessary to assess the level of AD knowledge among nursing staff and address their knowledge deficits in order to upgrade the quality of care and improve quality of life for AD patients. Objective: To assess the level of AD knowledge among nursing staff in Suzhou, using the Alzheimer's Disease Knowledge Scale (ADKS), and analyze its influencing factors. Methods: Nursing staff working in healthcare institutes such as hospitals, community centers, nursing homes, etc. in all the six districts of Suzhou City were selected by convenience sampling. A selfdesigned questionnaire was used to collect general information of the participants, including gender, age, education, professional title, workplace, AD-related training, contact with AD patients, experience in caring for AD patients, etc., and the ADKS scale was used to assess their level of AD knowledge. Results: A total of 1102 in-service nursing staff in Suzhou were included in the study. Univariate analysis showed that age, education, professional titles, bias towards AD patients, AD-related training, contact with AD patients, experience in caring for AD patients were the influencing factors of the total ADKS score; multivariate analysis indicated that age, bias towards AD patients, and contact with AD patients are independent influencing factors of the level of AD knowledge among nursing staff in Suzhou. Conclusion: Mastery of AD knowledge among the nursing staff in Suzhou is not satisfactory. It is urgent to change the nursing staff’s negative attitude towards AD and put into effect AD-related health education and training courses so that nursing staff can upgrade their level of AD knowledge and provide better care in order to improve the quality of life for AD patients.