Compliance with Standard Precautions Among Hospital Nurses in Ozamiz City, Philippines

Ozamiz City is the center for health and people from neighboring places choose to access its health services because of the available amenities for life-threatening conditions. With the increasing incidence of infectious diseases, compliance of nurses to standard precautions (SP) is necessary to control healthcare-associated infections. This study assessed the compliance with standard precautions among 100 nurses in two tertiary hospitals in Ozamiz City using a modified structured questionnaire. The study utilized the Kruskal-Wallis Test, Mann-Whitney U Test, and Pearson’s correlation statistical models. Findings revealed a very high compliance among nurses in 65.2% of the standard precautions. The study further revealed that majority of the nurses had very high compliance with handwashing protocols. However, the compliance of nurses on the use of gloves during intramuscular or hypodermal injection and the venous puncture was not very high. Compliance was not also very high on the wearing of the eye patch, goggles, gown, cap, and shoe shade, and on managing injured skin. Older and men nurses with more hospital experience showed a higher compliance. Findings were similar to nurses assigned in pedia ward, exposed to needlestick injury, not exposed to patient's body fluids, vaccinated with Hepatitis-B virus, and attended the SP training. There was a discrepancy between the compliance of nurses and knowledge. The difference in compliance among nurses as to the variables examined was not statistically significant (p<0.05). The correlation between knowledge and compliance was not also significant. The findings of this study may help improve the nosocomial infection control system.

 

Keywords: gloves, handwashing, health, hospitals, nosocomial