Nursing Intervention for the Promotion of Infection Control in Two Teaching Hospitals

Nursing Intervention for the Promotion of Infection Control in Two Teaching Hospitals in Ogun State, Nigeria

ABSTRACT

Health care workers, particularly nurses are at risk of infection because they constantly come into contact with infected tissues, fluid, blood and blood products. By complying with infection control measures a lot of infections can be prevented. Some survey studies have been conducted in Nigeria on knowledge, perception attitude and practice of infection control and they concluded that there was inadequate adherence to infection control practices and this could be addressed by organizing training and retraining programmes. This study therefore examined the effects of a training programme in promoting infection control in two teaching hospitals in Ogun State.

The study adopted a pretest-posttest quasi experimental design. The sample consisted of 87 participants. They were made up of experimental group which consisted of 42 registered nurses from Babcock University Teaching Hospital (BUTH). Ilishan-Remo, Ogun State. The control group was 45 nurses from Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital. The training programme consisted of 4 modules on infection control. The programme lasted 4 weeks. The instruments used for data collection were Knowledge about Infection Control Questionnaire (r = 0.79); Perceptions about Infection Control Questionnaire (r = 0.80); Attitudes towards Components of Infection Control Questionnaire (r = 0.62); Practice of Infection Control Questionnaire (both self-reported and observation checklist) (r =0.62). Four research questions were answered and three hypothesis were tested at 0.05 alpha level. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and Students’ T-test.

Findings showed that the mean age in the experimental group was 34.92 and SD 8.99 while the control group was 47.43 and SD 6.60. The mean for years of experience in the experimental group was 10.42 and SD 9.95 while in the control group was 21.89 and SD 8.72. On attitude, 30 participants (69.0%) had positive attitude in the experimental group compared to 21 participants (46.7%) in the control group. The mean difference was 4.02. On perception, 32 participants (76.0%) in the post intervention had good perception compared to nonein the control group. The mean difference was 8.36. On knowledge, 26 participants (62.9%) in the post intervention had high knowledge compared to none participant in the pre intervention. The mean difference was 7.24. On infection risk reduction in the intervention group, 28 participants (66.7%) have experienced sharp injury pre intervention and none post intervention. Significant differences were found between mean practice score of participants in the experimental and control (p = 0.001) and between self reported and observed practices (p = 0.000) but there was no significant difference between the mean knowledge score in the experimental and control group (p = 0.149).

The training programme was effective in improving the level of knowledge, attitude, perception and practice of infection control. Based on these findings, it is recommended that there should be adequate provision of facilities for infection control. Training and retraining should be organized for all nurses and other categories of healthcare workers to promote adherence to infection control.

Keywords: Training, Knowledge, Attitude, Perception, and Practice