Knowledge of infection control practices among intensive care nurses in a tertiary care hospital

Summary: Background: The threat of hospital-acquired infections persists despite advances in the health care system. A lack of knowledge regarding infection control practices among health care workers decreases compliance with these practices. We conducted a study to assess the knowledge of infecti...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Kanwalpreet Sodhi, Anupam Shrivastava, Muktanjali Arya, Manender Kumar
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2013-08-01
Series:Journal of Infection and Public Health
Online Access:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1876034113000361
Description
Summary:Summary: Background: The threat of hospital-acquired infections persists despite advances in the health care system. A lack of knowledge regarding infection control practices among health care workers decreases compliance with these practices. We conducted a study to assess the knowledge of infection control practices among nursing professionals at our hospital. Methods: In total, 100 nurses in the intensive care units at our hospital were given a questionnaire with 40 multiple choice questions, including 10 questions each regarding hand hygiene, standard and transmission-based precautions, care bundles and general infection control practices. The responses were scored as percentages. Results: The overall knowledge and awareness regarding different infection control practices were excellent (>90% positive responses) in 5% of the nursing professionals, good (80–90% positive responses) in 37%, average (70–80% positive responses) in 40% and below average (<70% positive responses) in 18%. Conclusion: The infection control knowledge among the nurses was fairly good; however, there is still a wide scope of improvement with regular educational programs and in-house training. Keywords: Infection control, Hand hygiene, Standard and transmission-based precautions, Care bundles
ISSN:1876-0341