Hailemariam Gezie
Background: The intimate contact of health care workers
and patient at the health care facility lead to the
transmission of pathogenic organisms from patient to
health care worker and vice versa. Hospital acquired
infection prevention which is standardized guide lines
contain a multitude protocols needed to be implemented by
health care workers to reduce potentially hospital acquired
infections.
Objective: To assess health care workers knowledge,
attitude and practice towards hospital acquired infection
prevention at Dessie referral hospital.
Method: Institutional based cross sectional study was
conducted among health care workers at Dessie referral
hospital. The subjects were selected by proportional
allocation in each respective department and simple
random sampling method was employed. The data was
analyzed by using statistical package for social sciences
(SPSS) and described in frequency tables and graph.
Results: 191 study subjects were participated in the study
which gives a response rate of 90.5% from 211 total sample
sizes. The study subjects had given their response according
to self-administered questioner. The result indicates that
86.4%, 76.4% and 77% of respondents had good knowledge
and favourable attitude and poor practice towards hospital
acquired infection prevention respectively.
Conclusion and recommendation: Even though the
majority of the health care workers had good knowledge
and favourable attitude, more than two third of them had
poor practice towards hospital acquired infection
prevention. Therefore health workers should strictly follow
hospital acquired infection prevention guidelines. Improving
sustainable supplies like personal protective equipment,
water supply and hand washing facilities at patient care site
is vital to correct the poor practice of infection prevention.
