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 Original Articles |
| A Study on the Awareness Level and the Performance Level of the Guidelines for the Prevention of Nosocomial Infection |
| Yong Soon Kim, Choon Young Chun, Cho Ja Kim, Jee Won Park |
| Department of Clinical Nursing, College of Nursing Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea, Department of Adult Nursing, Department of Nursing, Severance Hospital |
Vol.22 Num.3 (p131~145)
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Hospitals accommodate the patients of high risk of infection, due to reduced immunity power; and the ones who require operation or other medical treatments. Consequently, the role of the physicians and the nurses, who contact intimately with those patients in clinics, is very important in the effort for the prevention of nosocomial infection.
This study was aimed for investigation and comparing the level of awareness (of importance of guidelines for the prevention of nosocomial infection) and that of actual performance (of those guidelines) among and between nurses and physicians (interns/residents), thus providing basic materials for improving policies and educational programs for preventing nosocomial infection.
Inquiries are made on six (6) categories-"hand washing," "management of clothes," "sterilization and handling of medical supplies," "handling of contaminated equipments," "administration of medication," and "house cleaning and environment control."
The summary of the result of the study is as follows;
1) In the case of nurses, the arithmetical means of scores on all categories of the inquiries were 2.90 for awareness and 2.66 performance against the highest score of 5.00.
2) The nurses placed, in the awareness of the order of importance among six (6) categories, the first priority to "house cleaning and environment control," the second to "administration of medication," the third to "sterilization and handling of medical supplies," the fourth to "handling of contaminated equipments," the fifth to "hand washing', and the sixth to "handling of clothes". On the priority of performance of the six categories, however, the nurses gave different scores: the first to "administration of medication," the second to "handling of clothes," the third to "sterilization and handling of medical supplies," the fourth to "hand washing," the fifth to "handling of contaminated equipments," and the sixth to "house cleaning and environment control."
3) Comparative study on the response to the 69 questions of the six (6) categories showed that the levels of performance of the nurses are lower than those of awareness in all categories except in 'washing hands in running water' of "hand washing" category and five (5) items-'management of hair' and 'rings' of "Clothes" category. It indicated a statistic significance of '<0.001. In view of this fact, it is deemed necessary to devise measure to bring the level of performance to that of awareness.
4) In the case of physicians, the arithmetic means of scores on all categories were 2.59 on awareness level and 2.40 on performance level against the highest score of 5.00.
5) The physicians placed, in the awareness of order of importance among six (6) categories; the first priority to "administration of medication," the second to "house cleaning and environment control," the third to "handling contaminated equipments," the fourth to "sterilization and handling of medical supplies," the fifth to "hand washing," and the sixth to "clothes". In performance of the six (6) categories; physicians placed the first priority to "administration of medication," the second to "sterilization and handling of medical supplies," the third to "handing of contaminated equipments," the fourth to 'clothes," the fifth to 'house cleaning and environment control," and the sixth to "hand washing."
6) The study between awareness level and performance level of physicians on all categories indicated that they are, as in the case of the nurses, lower in performance level than in awareness level except in four (4) questions-including the ones for 'handling of hair' and 'rings' in "clothes category"-among 54 questions asked on all six (6) categories. The difference showed statistically significant level (p<.001).
7) The nurses held higher levels on both awareness and performance than physicians in all categories. The difference was statistically significant(p<0.001).
8) In view of the findings shown above, following recommendations are made for enhancing measures for the effective prevention of nosocomial infection.
(1) Develope and apply educational programs that will heighten the level of awareness on the importance of guidelines for prevention of nosocomial infection.
(2) Exert efforts to bring the level of performance to that of awareness, and monitor the progress continuously.
(3) Create a system and provide tools for easy performance of the guidelines, and give administrative supports for these efforts.
(4) Re-emphasize the importance of "hand washing" which is considered to be the most important measure for the prevention of nosocomial infection.
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