Knowledge and Practice of Infection Prevention and Control among Healthcare Workers in Secondary Healthcare Facilities in Southern Cross River State Nigeria

Abstract

Background Globally, millions of people are affected annually by health-care-associated infections, many of which could be avoided by strict compliance with standard infection prevention and control (IPC) protocols. Aim This study assessed the knowledge and practice of IPC among secondary health-care workers (HCWs) in Southern Cross River State. Materials and methods A structured questionnaire was used in conjunction with a descriptive cross-sectional design to collect data from 336 health-care personnel. IBM SPSS Statistics version 25 was used to analyse the generated data. Results The results show that 58% of the respondents had a high knowledge level of IPC and 52.4% exhibited a high level of standard IPC practice. About 53% reported that IPC protocols were available in their facility. No association was found between sociodemographic characteristics of HCWs and their practice of standard IPC practice except for sex. A significant association was found between sex and level of IPC practice (P = 0.015), the male HCWs had higher practice of IPC than their female counterparts. Although no association was found between knowledge and practice of IPC among the HCWs, the level of practice was, however, higher among the doctors than the nurses who had a higher level of knowledge on IPC. A logistic regression analysis further showed that only sex was significant (P = 0.021) in influencing a high level of IPC practice among the HCWs in this study. Conclusion It is, therefore, imperative for health-care facility leadership to organise training and retraining programs on IPC to improve knowledge and compliance among HCWs, especially in the face of emerging infectious diseases in Nigeria.

Keywords

• infection prevention and control
• knowledge
• practice
• secondary health-care
• workers