Adherence to infection control guidelines among the intensive care units staff in Khartoum state 2020

Abstract

Abstract Infection control is concerned with preventing healthcare associated infections which is defined as an infection developing in a patient hospitalized for more than 48 hours before the onset of signs and symptoms consistent with the infection or within 72 hours after discharge or within 30 days after surgical operation. It have great burden and causes morbidities and mortalities that can be prevented by following guidelines set by WHO and national SOPs. This study is descriptive cross sectional hospital-based study which conducted in four hospital ICUs in Khartoum to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice of infection control guidelines in ICU staff from nurses, doctors and other cadre involved in direct care of the patient. Simple random sampling was used from the total number of staff. The data collected using questionnaire, observation checklist and group discussions achieved through multiple visits to each ICU and involved 65 participants. Data is analyzed by using manual method assisted by computerized method (SPSS-version 20). The factors of demographics, knowledge, attitude toward the problem, barriers and actual practices are addressed. The results showed good knowledge about infection control among the staff regardless their age, profession, qualification. The barriers for applying infection control are found to be lack of resources, urgency nature of work in the ICU setting. We conclude that there is no association between knowledge and other parameters in contrary to other studies done. Time limits and the circumstances in which the study was done make the conclusion challenging and further researches are needed to address the topic. Keywords: healthcare associated infections, Infection control, Intensive care unit. Conflicts of interest: no declared competing interests