Knowledge and Attitude towards Infection Prevention at a Newly Established Hospital

Abstract: Objective: Health care associated infections are those infections that patients acquire in hospitals during their treatment and health care workers are important source for it. The study was designed to evaluate the knowledge and attitude of Health care workers towards infection control. Materials & Methods: A cross sectional study conducted from December 2019 to February 2020 at NIBD & BMT. Approval was taken from NIBD Research Committee. A pre-designed questionnaire was given to staff that had given informed consent. The questionnaire was composed of two parts. The first part comprised of sociodemographic information and the second part comprising 37 questions of knowledge and 11 question of attitude. Data was analyzed by SPSS version 23. Frequencies and percentages were calculated for categorical variables and mean for quantitative data. Chi-square test was used for association with level of significance as P-value <0.05. Results: A total of 82 health care professionals were interviewed. Out of which 49(60%) were male. The mean age of participants was 28.87 ± 6.4 years. Majority of staff had graduate or above graduate education 40(49%). The overall mean knowledge score was found below average with mean of 18.3±12.3. The mean knowledge scores between age groups (p=0.786), gender (p=0.760) and department (p=0.360) were not found significant. Knowledge score was significantly different among educations level (p= <0.001). 71% were found to have good attitude. Educational status was associated with attitude (p<0.001). Conclusion: Our findings revealed below average knowledge however, attitude was found satisfactory. It is the need of time to organize training and educational sessions in order to minimize the rate of infection for the betterment of health care professionals and patients. Keywords: Healthcare associated infection, Infection control, Knowledge and practices, Attitude towards infection control, Healthcare workers, Pakistan.