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BACKGROUND Fasting before elective surgeries is a regularly practiced norm for the past few decades. Preoperative fasting reduces the gastric volume and prevents aspiration during surgery. The guidelines for duration of fasting has been promulgated by the ASA, nevertheless, in practice there are wide discrepancies. This study was done to assess the level of knowledge and practices regarding preoperative fasting among health care providers. MATERIALS AND METHODSThe doctors and nurses of surgical departments of our hospital were then taken up for the study. A total of 122 health care providers were included in this cross-sectional study, of which 65 were nurses. A structured self-administered questionnaire was used to collect the data regarding fasting times prior to various anaesthesia and fasting times for different food stuffs. RESULTSThe mean duration of fasting for solids was 12 hours and for liquids was 7 hours. Overall, 49% of the study participants had adequate knowledge on the duration of preoperative fasting. Over 30% of the participants felt that the duration of fasting can be lowered for various types of anaesthesia. CONCLUSIONThere is an imminent need for bringing about a change in the attitudes and practices regarding the preoperative fasting among the health care providers. This study has elucidated the role of anaesthetists in pioneering this change by way of creating awareness and monitoring the implementation of the ASA guidelines in health care practice.

Background: Despite of prescribing and administration of drugs to the patient, handling of drugs with utmost care by proper storage and use helps the drug not to lose its potency when administered to a patient. Storage is an important aspect of the total drug control system. There is a need to increase awareness among nurse so as to avoid treatment failure. Exposure to light is a concern with numerous medications due to the potential for photodegradation or other chemical reactions that affect drug stability.Methods: This study was conducted on nursing professionals and students (BSc) students 1st year /2nd year, working in different departments of Inpatient and Outpatient in a tertiary care teaching hospital of RIMS Kadapa. The data was collected by using structured knowledge questionnaire on proper storage of drugs that should be protected from light which consists of 20 items, based on their answers score was given1-10.Results: Among 50, the highest number was occupied by staff nurses (28), followed by head nurses (12), student nurses (8) and the least was nursing officers (2). Majority of them were B.Sc. qualified (26), followed by general nursing (10). The M.Sc and diploma qualified nurses were seven and six in number respectively. Based on scoring they were classified as POOR (<5) 13, AVERAGE (5-10) 24, GOOD (>10) 13.Conclusions: In this study half of the nursing professionals have average knowledge on storage of light sensitive drugs irrespective of their experience, so there is a need to increase awareness on storage of light sensitive drugs.