Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Universal Precautions among the Hospital Staff at Sterling Hospital, Vadodara: A Hospital Based Study

Abstract

Purpose: Universal precautions are intended to modify the physical environment and aff ect the social and microbiological environment for the benefi t of potential hosts and care giver. It means taking routine safe working practices to protect staff and patients from infections by blood and body fl uids. Thus the present study was under taken with the AIM to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice of hospital staff spectrum at a leading private hospital at Vadodara regarding universal precautions and thereby planning to develop required interventional strategies. Materials and method: A questionnaire survey among the day shift hospital staff employed at the clinical settings like nurses, doctors, technicians etc. to gather information from them regarding the knowledge, attitude and practice of Universal Precautions at Sterling Hospital, Vadodara. The data was collected by filling of the close ended questionnaire which was developed by referring guidelines for Isolation precautions: Preventing transmission of infectious agents in health care setting 2007 developed in reference to Siegel et al. The questions were designed to cover different aspects of standard and transmission based-precautions. The whole population which included were all the day shift doctors, nurses and technicians etc. of general ward, ICCU, MICU, SICU, NICU, CCU, burns ward, renal transplant wing etc. Results: Out of 100 respondents, 49 were males and 51 were females. 91% of the population gave a correct response regarding the basic concept of universal precautions. The result showed that knowledge and attitude are negatively correlated. The correlation between attitude and practice is very low, 0.5%, that means that 100% change in attitude leads to 0.5% change in practice of universal precautions. The correlation between knowledge and practice is 13.3% that is that 100% change in knowledge would cause 13.3% change in practice of universal precautions. The association among knowledge, attitude and practice of universal precautions is highly significant (p<0.005). Conclusion: The staff spectrum which works in the clinical setting are following the high level of practice of universal precautions. There is an association between the knowledge, attitude and practice of universal precautions.