Knowledge and Compliance with Standard Precautions amongst Healthcare Workers in Selected Hospitals in Rivers State, Nigeria

Abstract

Background: Standard precautions (SPs) in the hospital are very important in the reduction of health care workers' exposure to occupational health hazards but most hospitals are used to reactive rather than proactive safety practices. The effect of reactive safety practices is overwhelming to health care workers, hospitals and the society. Thus, this study assessed health care workers' knowledge and compliance with standard precautions. Materials and Methods: Descriptive cross-sectional design and proportionate stratified random sampling method was adopted and a sample size of 391was selected using Taro-Yamane formula.The study relied on a structured questionnaire to elicit information from respondents and a reliability of 0.87 was obtained. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used with the aid of statistical package for social science (SPSS) software version 21. Ogbonda et al.; AJMAH, 18(2): 11-22, 2020; Article no.AJMAH.55126 12 Results: Healthcare workers' (HCWs) have fair knowledge of SPs and poor compliance with SPs. Also, there is significant association between HCWs' knowledge of SPs and gender, marital status, years of experience and job category in the hospitals (p < 0.05). Consequently, there is significant association between compliance with SPs and gender, years of experience and job categories in the hospitals (p < 0.05). Conclusion: There is great need for strong advocacy on knowledge of SPs and compliance with SPs in the hospitals to curb increasing occupational health hazards. The Nigeria government and hospital managements should develop an all-encompassing integrated SPs policies, strategies and procedures consistent with global best practices. Original Research Article

The magnitude of standard precautions practice and its associated factors among healthcare workers in governmental hospitals of northeastern Ethiopia

“…The findings of this study showed that healthcare professionals generally adhered to standard precautions practices at a relatively low level. In contrast to earlier studies conducted in Gondar, Ethiopia (12%) ( 19 ), Hadiya, Ethiopia (15.0%) ( 26 ), Nigeria (14.85%) ( 27 ), and northeastern USA (17.4%) ( 28 ), the self-reported compliance of standard precaution practice among healthcare workers in this study was 19.2%.…”

“…The findings of this study showed that healthcare professionals generally adhered to standard precautions practices at a relatively low level. In contrast to earlier studies conducted in Gondar, Ethiopia (12%) (19), Hadiya, Ethiopia (15.0%) (26), Nigeria (14.85%) (27), and northeastern USA (17.4%) (28), the selfreported compliance of standard precaution practice among healthcare workers in this study was 19.2%. The reasons for this non-adherence to SPs practice might be due to differences in a wide range of factors, including culture, economic and social factors, management commitment on the part of the institution, human resources, and individual factors like self-efficacy, beliefs, and knowledge of SPs measures, as well as professionals' lack of knowledge or resources.…”

Misinformation about COVID-19 among internet users in Nigeria: Tools to effective public awareness, prevention and control

“…Compliance itself is a transferrable psychological practice especially when the projecting personnel that breach standard is of higher social, religious, or educational status (LUMEN 2021b). As previously mentioned by Ogbonda et al (2020) of the effectiveness and continuity of control measures to infection can only be met when the users are thereby proactive, thus, public health departments should lay emphasis on correcting or emphasizing the general perspective of the public on issue related to their health as COVID-19.…”