Knowledge and utilisation of infection prevention guidelines by operating theatre and intensive care nurses at university teaching hospital, Lusaka.

Abstract

Despite the initiatives taken to combat infection at University Teaching Hospital, Hospital acquired infections especially post operative wound infection rates are still on the increase. The main objective of this study was to determine the extent operating theater and intensive care unit nurses have embraced the knowledge and utilization of infection prevention guidelines. The study revealed that hospital acquired infections are the major causes of morbidity and mortality in patients admitted in our health institutions. These prolong patients' stay in hospital thus causing the hospital to incur extra costs. Literature review had also shown that similar studies on the same aspect had been done in Zambia before on various cadres of health care givers such as doctors, midwives, student nurses, general nurses and daily classified employees but no study had been conducted in operating theater and intensive care nurses thereby creating a gap in knowledge of the level of the infection prevention practices in these critical areas. To this end an exhausted literature review was conducted on the application of knowledge and utilization of the guidelines by nurses in the operating theaters and Intensive Care Units at the University Teaching Hospital. A non-experimental descriptive study design was used to determine the level of knowledge and utilization of infection prevention guidelines by operating theater and intensive care unit nurses at the University Teaching Hospital. Primary data was collected using self administered questionnaires. The main source of data was from text books, journals and the internet. Analysis of data was done manually. Data was presented in the form of frequency tables, pie and bar charts. Cross tabulation tables were used to determine the relationship between variables. The findings of the study revealed that though the majority of the respondents had heard about Infection Prevention Guidelines (IPGs), very few were actually applying the knowledge resulting in high infections rates. On the basis of the findings, it can be concluded that the increase in nosocomial infections at the University Teaching Hospital was lack of applying knowledge of the guidelines by nurses in their day to day operations.