Developing nursing standard for maintaining fluid and electrolyte balance for critically Ill children at pediatric intensive care unit

Background: Fluid and electrolyte disturbances are the most frequently reported problems in PICUs; which are associated with high morbidity and mortality rate among critically ill children. This study aimed to develop nursing standard for maintaining fluid and electrolyte balance for critically ill children at Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.Method: An exploratory descriptive design was implemented at PICU in Assiut University Children Hospital. A convenience sample of all PICU nurses were involved in this study. Two tools were used to collect the study data:Tool (1): A structured interview questionnaire for nurses. It consisted of two parts; characteristics of the studied nurses and nursing competencies for fluid and electrolyte standard questionnaire. Tool (2): Nursing standards for maintaining fluid and electrolyte balance observation checklist. The study results indicated that 78.8% of the nurses had a satisfactory knowledge level. Also, 87.9% had unsatisfactory practice in the first assessment which declined to 48.5% in the second assessment (p= 0.001**). It was concluded from the study results that more than three-quarters of the nurses had a satisfactory knowledge level. Also, the majority of the nurses had unsatisfactory practice in the first assessment which improved in the second assessment with a statistically significant difference.