KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICE OF PERIOPERATIVE PATIENT BLOOD MANAGEMENT AMONG CLINICIANS IN HOSPITAL UNIVERSITI SAINS MALAYSIA

Received 2022-02-15; Accepted 2022-09-11; Published 2022-12-31

Abstract

Perioperative Patient Blood Management is part of the patient blood management (PBM) program specifically focused on surgical patients. Even though this concept had been introduced in 2010 by World Blood Organization (WHO), earlier studies in Europe had shown poor knowledge and practice among clinicians in this area. In Malaysia, PBM approach is still not comprehensive, and there was no published data to relate this problem with clinicians’ lack of knowledge and practice. Therefore, our main objective was to study the knowledge and practice of PBM among clinicians mainly involved in the perioperative field at Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia (Hospital USM), Kelantan. A cross-sectional study was done from 1^st December 2019 to 31^st October 2020 using a structured and validated questionnaire containing 41 items. Logistic regression was used to evaluate the association between socio-demographic variables with knowledge level. A total of 252 participants were involved in this study. About 61.5% of the clinicians had a poor knowledge level. Poor knowledge level among clinicians was significantly associated with clinicians' age, primary field, previous knowledge about PBM, and PBM course attendance (p<0.05). The practice was at a moderate level. Overall, there were significant knowledge gaps and inadequate practice of PBM in perioperative patients among clinicians in Hospital USM. These results might guide the local clinical division to formulate more constructive and effective training strategies to strengthen the clinicians’ knowledge and practice of PBM in perioperative patients.