Universal Precautions in a Teaching Hospital

The Lowbury lecture: behaviour in infection control

“…30 It defines intention by a person's attitude, perceived social norm and perceived behavioural control, and has been successfully applied to study several categories of health-related behaviours. 31 The attitude towards the behaviour is the expression of one's positive or negative evaluation of performing the behaviour. The perceived social norm reflects a personal perception of the expectations of others about the behaviour.…”

Effectiveness of and compliance to preventive measures against the occupational transmission of human immunodeficiency virus.

“…Use of punctu re-resistant containers for the disposal of sharp objects was satisfactory, but needl e recapping was still very prevalent and com pliance to hand washing very low. Another study combining two methods, questionn aire and observation, found that universal precauti ons were followed in only 19% of the 1441 proce dures observed (27). Compliance according to profe ssion was 27% for nurses, 5% for laboratory technic ians, and 3% for physi cians.…”

“…Most of these studies were conducted with a questionnaire administe red to worke rs, but one study using two methods, questionn aire and direct observation, showe d that workers tend ed to overesti mate their compliance to univer sal precautions (27). Nonetheless , the tendencies drawn fro m all the aforementio ned studies are similar and show that co mplia nce to recomm endation s relating to needle manipul ation is higher than that relating to the use of barrier methods , that nurses are more compliant than physici ans, and that acce ss to, and the ease of use of, protective equip ment well integrated into regular task perfo rmance tended to increase compliance.…”