Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Infection Control among Medical Imaging Students in Unisza

Abstract

Healthcare-associated infections risk in health care settings has caused a great concern to medical imaging students during clinical attachment due to high interaction rate with patients. Students may spread infections through inadequate knowledge and poor practice, which may then degrade the standard of care. Preventive measures and infection control policies have been developed to prevent the spread of infections, lower morbidity and medical care costs. However, recent evidence revealed poor level of health science students’ knowledge regarding infection control. This cross-sectional survey-based study is aimed to determine level of knowledge, attitude and practice towards infection control. This study is also aimed to determine the association between knowledge, attitude, and practice level of infection control and standard precautions among uniSZA medical imaging students. The sampling method used was purposive sampling. An online questionnaire was distributed using social media platforms, Whatsapp from 21th March to 22th April 2023. The questionnaire consists of 12 items on knowledge, 7 items on attitude and 10 items on practice about infection control. A total of 136 medical imaging students participated in this study, 98 Bachelor’s degree students and 38 Diploma students. Overall knowledge, attitude and practice level among students were good. The percentage of respondents had good knowledge, positive attitude and good practice were 100% (n=136), 100% (n=136) and 98.5% (n=134) respectively. Fisher’s exact test shows there was no association between attitude level and practice level of infection control among respondents (p =1.00). Continuous infection control training and education program are still required to enhance awareness of standard precautions and thus reduce infection exposure. Future recommendations are to include all health science students and medical students to participate in the survey. Further studies to assess the extent of public knowledge regarding infection control may also be conducted.