Documentation practice and associated factors among nurses working in public hospitals in Wolaita Zone, Southern Ethiopia

BACKGROUND: Nursing documentation documents the everyday activities of nursing care that are planned and implemented on individual patients by nurses of different educational statuses. Documentation of nursing activities is the key source of clinical information to meet professional and legal requirements. Although nursing documentation is an important part of nursing practice, it is commonly undone by nurses working with patients for different reasons. OBJECTIVE: To assess the documentation practice and their associated factors among nurses working in public hospitals in the Wolaita Zone, Southern Ethiopia. METHODS: An institutional-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 402 nurses and a simple random sampling technique was used to select participants. Data were collected using a pretested structured self-administered questionnaire adapted from previous studies. Statistical Package for the Social Science version 26 was used for data entry and analysis. Independent variables with p-value < 0.25 from bivariable logistic regression were entered into the multivariable logistic regression method and significant associations were obtained at an adjusted odds ratio with a 95% confidence interval and p-value < 0.05. RESULTS: In this study, the good documentation practice among nurses was 42% [95% confidence interval (CI), 37.2–46.8]. There was a statistically significant relationship between documentation practice and age [adjusted odds ratio (AOR): 2.590 (95% CI: 1.4–4.79)], educational status [AOR: 2.248 (95% CI: 1.13–4.48)], hospital level [AOR: 4.185 (95% CI: 2.63–6.72)], work experience (2–5 years and > 5 years) [AOR: 4.066 (95% CI: 1.55–10.64)] and [AOR: 5.395 (95% CI: 1.97–14.81)] respectively and in-service training [AOR: 0.582 (95% CI: 0.366–0.923)]. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS: This study demonstrated that the good practice of documentation among nurses was found to be low. Age, educational status, working in comprehensive specialized hospitals, work experience, and having in-service training had significant associations with documentation practice. It is very important to plan and intervene with different strategies, such as providing training for young nurses, nurses with low educational status, nurses working in primary hospitals, and nurses with less than two years of work experience on documentation standards, to create positive attitudes and enhance their knowledge. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12912-023-01490-8.