Nurses' perceptions of meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus: Impacts on practice

Abstract

Aim and objectives: The main aim of this study is to explore the perceptions and understanding of meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections among adults' and children's nurses. Specifically the objectives are: ■ to assess and compare adults' and children's nurses' self-reported practices ■ to examine the correlation between knowledge and self-reported practices among nursing staff members ■ to investigate the factors that influence nurses' compliance with good infection control practice. Background: MRSA is notorious for having serious physical and economical implications for patients, healthcare managers and practitioners. Therefore, it is important that healthcare professionals and managers are given adequate information to enhance their knowledge and understanding of the condition in order to minimise and control it. There are few studies from the United Kingdom that address nurses' knowledge, attitudes and self-reported practices, and hence a gap in human knowledge is identified, which provides a good rationale for this study. Design: A combined quantitative and qualitative research design, which comes from a positivist paradigm perspective, was used in this study. Methods: A cross-sectional survey with a purposive sample was used. Adults' and children's nurses' (n = 144) knowledge and self-reported practices were studied using a self-reporting questionnaire devised for the study using information from the literature. Results: The overall level of knowledge of infection control was relatively inadequate. However, adults' nurses scored significantly higher on knowledge (p = 0.001) and self-reported practice (p = 0.001) than did children's nurses. In addition, there was no significant difference in self-reported practices between nurses who had received infection control training and those who did not receive training (p = 0.16), in both specialties. Conclusion: Adults' nurses in this sample have higher levels of knowledge and self-reported practice than children's nurses with regard to MRSA. Moreover, there is a correlation between subjects' knowledge and self-reported practices. Relevance to clinical practice: Educational interventions and training should be implemented with nurses of different disciplines in order to improve their knowledge scores and practice proficiency. Repeating the study in other settings and in a larger sample size would be worthwhile to see if these conclusions can be generalised.