Abstract

Background: Healthcare-associated infections have been reported to be a serious problem in the health-care services as they are common causes of illness and mortality among hospitalized patients. Health workers should have a good level of understanding of the knowledge, attitudes and practices in infection prevention and control in health care setups. The objective of this study was to evaluate the knowledge, attitude and practice of health professionals on infection prevention working in Northern Red Sea hospitals (Massawa, Gindae, Afabet, and Nakfa Hospitals).

Methodology: The research was a descriptive cross sectional hospital based study and all nurse categories, medical doctors, and laboratory workers were included in this study. Data was collected by face to face interview using structured questionnaire; then entered and analyzed by CSPro 7.2 and SPSS software version 21 respectively.

Results: The study showed that 43.6% of the respondents were aged below 25 years with 65% has less than five year’s clinical experience. Majority of them were from Gindae Zonal Referral Hospital (34.3%) and Massawa Hospital (27.1%). They were dominated by health assistants (47.8%) and comprehensive nurse midwife (20.1%). Of the respondents, 91.6%had good knowledge and positive attitude but only 77.1% reported good practice in infection prevention measures. Health workers in Nakfa Hospital had the highest knowledge (100%) and attitude (100%) but they had the lowest practice (58.3%) compared to other hospitals and laboratory staffs had the highest knowledge (100%), attitude (100%) and practice (90%) by profession.

Conclusion: Health workers in Northern Red Sea region hospitals had good knowledge and positive attitude in infection prevention measures, but they practiced it less frequently. Background of respondent’s doesn’t show significant association to their knowledge, attitude and practice. Regular training and monitoring, supplementation of personal protective materials and continuous supervision are highly recommended to the health workers.

Keywords: Clinical environment; Hospital-acquired infections; Standard precautions; Knowledge; Attitude; Practice; Infection prevention