Precaution Practice to Safety Preventive Measure Control among Health-care Providers in Critical Care Units of Al-Anbar Governorate: A Hospital-based Study

Abstract

AIM: Health-care-associated infections (HAI) are a serious patient safety problem. There are effective preventive practices, but little information on adherence in AL-Anbar hospitals. This study aims to identify the practice association of health-care providers (HCPs) in infection prevention with some sociodemographic characteristics. METHODS: A cross-sectional observational study was conducted at different three critical areas (critical (or coronary) care unit, respiratory care unit, and intensive care unit) of the three largest hospitals of Fallujah Teaching Hospital, Ramadi Gynecology-Pediatric Hospital, and Ramadi Teaching Hospital in Al-Anbar, Iraq. A prepared questionnaire by the researcher for the study was conducted and involved 9 questions about sociodemographic characteristics and 17 questions about practice characteristics. Chi-square and frequency distribution were used to identify the significance of the variables’ association at the p = 0.05. RESULTS: Among 67 health-care providers (HCPs) of the present study, the highest proportion involved were at age 25–29 years with 30 (44.8%) with mean ± SD (28.35 ± 6.2), 71.6% of them were male gender, 32 (47%) of them had a diploma degree in education, and their occupation was rotator nurse 28 (41.8%). Nearly half of 31 (46.3%) of HCPs used all available aseptic techniques. Statistically, a significant association was reported between the practice level and aseptic technique using (p = 0.032), respiratory hygiene (p = 0.01), and sharp safety engineering and work practice controls (p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Despite the availability of good procedures for HCPs, preferable to make efforts to decrease the minority absence of practice due to little education by continuing training and measurable control on HCPs for better performance in critical areas particularly.