Abstract
BackgroundHealthcare-associated infections are a major global public health agenda. Health care workers are front line of protecting themselves and clients from infection. This study examined the knowledge and practice of healthcare workers on infection prevention and its associated factors among health professionals working at Debre Markos Referral Hospital.MethodsA Hospital-based cross-sectional study was conducted with a structured pre-tested questionnaire among 150 participants. The healthcare workers were selected through systematic random sampling technique. Multivariate logistic regressions were computed to identify associated factors of knowledge and practice of infection prevention and variables with a p-value < 0.05 were considered statistically significant.ResultsMore than two thirds (84.7%) of healthcare workers were found to be knowledgeable but only 86 (57.3%) of respondents demonstrated a good practice on infection prevention. Older age, lengthy work experience and higher educational status were significantly associated with both knowledge and practice of infection prevention. In-service training, availability of infection prevention supplies and adherence to infection prevention guidelines was also associated with the practice of infection prevention.ConclusionsThe finding of this study revealed a good knowledge of infection prevention on the majority of participants with relatively minimal practice rate. Sociodemographic factors and health facility factors were associated with knowledge and practice of infection prevention. Hospitals and other concerned stakeholders should ensure constant availability of guidelines and the provision of training to health providers. Moreover, developing professionals’ educational level, introducing infection prevention standard of practice and continuous mentorship was recommended.
Highlights
Healthcare-associated infections are a major global public health agenda
This study revealed that the working experience was found another strong predictor of knowledge towards infection prevention which shows that Healthcare workers who had work
Multiple logistic regression of this study revealed that healthcare workers with an educational level of Msc or above were four times (AOR = 4.15, 95%, confidence interval (CI) = [1.381–7.41]) more likely practice infection prevention activities than those healthcare works with diploma professionals and BSC holders were two times (AOR = 1.959, 95%, CI = [1.970–4.685]) more likely practiced infection prevention activities than those healthcare works with diploma professionals in respectively
Summary
Healthcare-associated infections are a major global public health agenda. Health care workers are front line of protecting themselves and clients from infection. This study examined the knowledge and practice of healthcare workers on infection prevention and its associated factors among health professionals working at Debre Markos Referral Hospital. HCAIs are infections that were not present or incubating at the time of admission and are received by the patient during the process of care in a hospital or any other health care facility. Healthcare workers are front line of protecting themselves and clients from infection [9,10,11,12,13]. Infection prevention is a process of placing barrier between susceptible host and the microorganisms [14] and a major component of safe and high-quality service delivery at the facility level. HAIs assocaited morbidity and mortality are preventable through infection prevention strategy like, proper hand hygiene [15,16,17,18,19]
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