Forensic Nursing Practices in Emergency Units of Federal Medical Centres in Niger State

Forensic nursing integrates clinical care with legal evidence collection, particularly in emergency healthcare settings that routinely receive victims of violence, accidents, and unexplained injuries. This study assesses the awareness and practice of forensic nursing among nurses in emergency units of three federal medical centres in Niger State, North Central Nigeria. A descriptive cross-sectional design was used, administering structured questionnaires to 80 nurses and conducting semi-structured interviews with five senior nursing officers. The study evaluates nurses' understanding of evidence preservation principles, injury documentation standards, and their familiarity with medico-legal reporting obligations. Findings indicate that while nurses demonstrate adequate clinical competence, forensic awareness is considerably low: only twenty-two percent of respondents reported receiving any formal training in forensic nursing principles. Injury documentation practices were inconsistent, with most nurses using free-form narrative descriptions rather than standardised body maps or injury classification tools. The study further highlights gaps in the referral of forensic cases to relevant law enforcement agencies, with over sixty percent of respondents unaware of the mandatory reporting obligations for certain categories of injuries under Nigerian law. Recommendations include the integration of forensic nursing modules into pre-service and in-service nursing training programmes and the development of standard injury documentation tools for emergency units across North Central Nigeria. Keywords: forensic nursing, emergency unit, federal medical centre, Niger State, injury documentation.