Knowledge and practice of standard precautions for infection control among surgical team members at Rwanda Miltary Hospital

Abstract

Introduction: The primary goal of surgical team is to prevent the surgical site infection but also to ensure the safety of both patients and operating room health care team. Surgical team members and patients are highly exposed to hospital acquired infections (HAIs) such as Human immune virus (HIV), hepatitis virus B and C (HBV and HCV) and other blood borne diseases due to invasive procedures result in blood and body fluid which prevented by applying standard precautions for infection control. The research intended to assess the knowledge and practice of standards precautions (SPs) for infection control among surgical team members working at Rwanda Military Hospital (RMH) Methods: A cross-sectional study design using a self-administered questionnaire was used on 105 participants including nurses (32.4%), surgeons (20%), anesthesia providers (23.8%) and17.1% students working in operating theatre at RMH .They selected by simple Random sampling method. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 16 with descriptive and inferential statistics. Results The majority of study participants were males (61%), 20-29years old (51.4%), with 0-4years (42%) and 5-9years (38.1%) of experience. 71.4% of participants were aware of the concept with 62.8% that had a good knowledge of SPs, associated with experience, age and Gender (men) (P<0.005). Practices of SP was good for hand washing (>86%) but the use of PPEs and solid wastes management were poor. good knowledge on Infection Prevention SPs was associated with hands hygiene practices (p-value<0.001) with water and soap for 10-15 seconds (P-value=0.024) and complying with 5 Moments of hands hygiene (p-value=0.018). But it was not associated with needles and sharps management and solid wastes managements (p-value< 0.05). Facility do not provide all necessary equipment and supply to perform infection control SPs (80%) Conclusion More than a half but not enough of study participants had good knowledge on standards precaution and they had a training SPs. Practice of wastes management and PPEs use were poor, and the facility does not provide all necessary equipment to apply SPs.