Knowledge and Practice of Nurses towards Standard Precautions of Infection Control in Government Hospitals of Sana'a City, Yemen

Background: Hospital-associated infections are those infections acquired during the patient's stay in a hospital or after the patient has been discharged from the hospital. Healthcare professionals, nurses in particular, are constantly expose to these infections while carrying out their nursing activities. This study aimed to assess the level of knowledge and practice of the standard precautions of infection control among nurses in the selected government hospitals in Sana'a, Yemen. Methods: A cross-sectional study conducted amongst nurses working in five government hospitals in Sana'a City, Yemen. A convenience sample consisting of 232 nurses who work in select hospitals used. The tool used was a self-administered questionnaire. Collected data was analyzed using SPSS version 20. Descriptive statistics used to analyze the study results. Chi-square test, T-test, and One-Way ANOVA test performed and a P-value ?0.05 considered significant. Results: The study revealed that there was a significant statistical difference between nurses' knowledge and practice of standard precautions of infection control (p=0.037). The mean practices percent of nurses practicing safety precautions (53%) was significantly lower than the mean percentage of tested knowledge (81.4%). Less than half of the respondents 106 (45.7%) had a very good knowledge level (>80%), however, only 48 (20.7%) practiced a good level of standard precautions of infection control. Significant statistical differences were found between knowledge and gender (P=0.028) as well as the practice towards work experience and hospital's name (P=0.047, 0.001 respectively). Conclusions: Nurses in the study had good knowledge but the poor practice of standard precautions of infection control. Most of the barriers to using standard precautions of infection control measures were the inadequate supplies of safety devices and the unavailability of infection control protocol in the hospitals.