Provision of nutritional support to critically ill patients can be challenging. Critical care nurses must be aware of which patients require specific nutritional support, when to initiate nutritional support, and by which route to provide nutritional support. The Materials and methods: The descriptive study conducted in 50 nurses working in intensive care units of a Multispecialty hospital at, Pondicherry to assess the level of knowledge and practices of nurses about nutrition of Intensive Care patients the subjects were selected by convenient sampling technique. The structured questionnaire and a check list were distributed to the nurses to assess their knowledge and practices of the nutritional support to intensive care patients after getting informed consent. Results: This study included majority of the people from 36-45years years of age group, and majority of (90%) from female sex also, 60% of the people was graduates. 50% of the nurses was having less than fi ve years of experience. This study reveals majority of the people (60%), falls in moderately adequate knowledge and have mean score knowledge of 15.48 ±1.55. Knowledge score between various level also insignificant p=0.60.This study also shows 68% of the nurse's practice score falls between 51–75% (mean score is 9.76±1.04), also practice score between various levels also insignificant (p=0.7) there is no significant difference in knowledge score and practice score of graduates with other groups (P=0.7, P=0.4). It could be might be due to small sample size. Conclusion: As enteral nutrition is managed by Nurses, they should be adequately updated about the importance of nutrition to the critically ill patients
Nutrition in ICU patients, feeding critically ill patients, Nurses awareness, knowledge
