Knowledge and Practice of Injection Safety among Workers of Nigerian Prison Service Health Facilities in Kaduna State

Abstract

Injection safety practice is an important component of basic infection control but in low income settings like the prisons where the seroprevalence of blood borne infections are significantly higher. These remains neglected under the pressure of overwhelming social, economic and political challenges and put the patients and healthcare providers at risk of infectious and non-infectious adverse events. This study assessed the level of knowledge and practice of injection safety among health care workers of Nigerian prison service health facilities in Kaduna State, Command. A cross sectional descriptive study using multistage sampling technique was employed by means of structured interviewer administered questionnaire to 138 prison health workers carried out in January 2012. Data analysis was by use of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS version 17), with statistical significance set at p-value of 0.05. The findings showed that 54.3% of Health workers had good knowledge score of key injection safety issues, while 16.7% and 29.0% had had fair and poor general knowledge scores respectively. About half (50.4%) had fair practice of injection safety. There was statistical significance between knowledge and practice of injection safety in relation to cadre of staff (p value 0.000), staff that had training on injection safety (p value 0.003) and years of experience of the staff (p value 0.032) respectively. There was good knowledge score and fair practice of injection safety among health workers. The determinant factors were the cadre, training and years of experience of the workers. Therefore, it was concluded that regular and on the job training programs on core aspect of injection safety among health workers should be conducted by the health departments of Nigerian prison service on regular basis.