No abstract

Background: Hepatic Encephalopathy (HE) is neuropsychiatric deterioration syndrome due to hepatic insufficiency. HE symptoms appear gradually ranging from altered mental status to deep coma and manifest as disorders of orientation, memory, perception, reasoning, focusing, rigor, and generalized convulsions. Four levels of HE exist with different symptoms. Aim: This study aimed to assess knowledge and self-care regarding patients with hepatic encephalopathy. Design: An exploratory descriptive research design was used in this study. Setting: This study was conducted at the Endemic Disease Unit (Hepatology Unit) at El-Fayoum University Hospitals. Sample: A purposive sample of 60 adult patients aged 18-65 years from both genders who was diagnosed as having hepatic encephalopathy. Tools: one tool was used to collect study data (a structured interview questionnaire), and include three parts: patient demographic and medical data, patient's knowledge assessment questionnaire and patient's self-care reported checklist. Results: this study revealed that, the mean age of studied patients was 49.57±11.48, 76.7% of the studied patients had unsatisfactory level of knowledge and 55.5% of them had a poor level of self-care regarding hepatic encephalopathy. Conclusion: the study concluded that, more than three quarters of the studied patients had unsatisfactory knowledge regarding hepatic encephalopathy. Also, more than half had a poor self-care regarding hepatic encephalopathy. Recommendations: Distribution of a written teaching hand book for each hepatic patient in simplified term and containing simple pictures about preventive measures of hepatic encephalopathy to provide them with the needed information.