A Descriptive Study to Assess the Knowledge and Practice Related to Ryle’s Tube Among B.Sc. Nursing 6th Semester Students in Selected Nursing Colleges Jhansi

Ryle’s tube, or nasogastric tube, is a flexible tube inserted through the nose into the stomach. It is used for feeding, gastric decompression, medication administration, and aspiration of gastric contents. In clinical settings, nurses are primarily responsible for insertion, confirmation of placement, maintenance, and monitoring for complications. Incorrect insertion or failure to confirm placement can lead to serious adverse events, including aspiration pneumonia, pneumothorax, oesophageal perforation, and even death. Despite the importance of this procedure, multiple studies have reported gaps between theoretical knowledge and clinical practice among nursing students. Students may know the steps conceptually but struggle with confirmation of placement, patient positioning, and management of complications. Assessing knowledge and practice levels among nursing students provides baseline data on current competency. It helps identify specific areas of weakness, such as inability to differentiate between tracheal and oesophageal placement, or poor documentation. Materials and Methods: A descriptive research design to find out knowledge and practice of Ryle’s tube among 6th semester students. Self-constructed tool was prepared including demographic information, knowledge related questions in each phase of procedure, including complication in form of MCQ’s and three point Likert scale for assessment of practice. Content validity was done by various experts and reliability was calculated by statistical method i.e r= 0.93 and then pilot study was conducted on 10% of samples that was found appropriate. The study conducted on 60 samples. Data was collected in the month of May 2026. Data was collected using structured questionnaire to find out knowledge and practice of about Ryles tube. Results: In the finding of the study, knowledge of the respondents 60 (100%) had good level of knowledge related to Ryle’s tube. For practice, 55(92%) were competent and 5(8%) were moderately competent. A moderate positive correlation was found between knowledge and practice scores, r= 0.502, p<0.05. Significant association was not found between knowledge of Ryle’s tube with Age, Gender, Previous clinical exposure, p<0.05, therefore null hypothesis H01 is accepted. The table shows that the five demographic variables show statistically significant association with level of practice regarding Ryle’s tube among B.Sc. Nursing 6th semester students at p<0.05 level. Calculated value is more than p value, hence there is association between practice regarding Ryle’s tube among B.Sc. Nursing 6th semester students with selected demographic variables, therefore research hypothesis H3 is accepted. Conclusion: The study revealed gaps between knowledge and practice levels among nursing students related Ryle’s tube. Despite having good theoretical knowledge, practice competence was moderate in a slightly significant portion of students. Findings suggest the need for increased supervise clinical practice, simulation- based training and periodic skill assessment to improve competency and ensure patient safety. .