KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICES REGARDING INFECTION CONTROL AMONG HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONAL OF SAIDU TEACHING HOSPITAL

BACKGROUND: Hospital Acquired Infections (HAI) is infection which patients get during theirtreatment, and later time of stay in the hospitals. There are almost 1.4 million patients who suffer fromthis condition every day. The World Bank (WB) reports the infectious disease burden around 20.4%. Tominimize the risk of infections during the hospital stay, it imperative that infection control practices arewell in place and being practiced by the healthcare professionals.OBJECTIVE: The current study is designed to assess Knowledge and Practices (KP) of the health careprofessionals regarding infection control in Saidu Teaching Hospital (STH).MATERIAL & METHODS: This cross sectional study was conducted in the Saidu Group of TeachingHospital (SGTH), Swat, Khyber Pukhtoon Khwa (KP) during the months of October to December 2013.Randomly selected sample size of 198 Health care workers, 80 medical doctors, 100 nurses, and 18laboratory technicians/paramedical staff. Purpose-built, adopted and pre-tested questionnaireadministered to study population. Frequencies, percentages and scored for the Knowledge and Practice(KP) variables calculated. Analysis Of Variance (ANOVA) was used to compare average scores of theKnowledge and practices (KP).RESULT: A total of 198 subjects participated in the current study among those 40% were doctors, 50%nurses and 10% were paramedical staff. Less than 50% scores were considered having poor knowledgewhile 50-75% were good and >75% were considered having excellent knowledge. A total of 21 itemsregarding Knowledge were asked. Most (85%) of the doctors reported excellent knowledge. About half(52%) of nurses reported excellent knowledge and more than (38%) of paramedical staff remainedexcellent in knowledge. When cross-tabbed, overall doctors obtained 86.6% score for knowledge whilenurses got 76.2% scores and 73.2% score remained for paramedical staff. All the three groupsstatistically differed from one another for knowledge part (p=0.006, F=5.610).Regarding therespondents’ practices, when compared for mean scores, doctors were found to be having betterpractices than the other two groups (p=0.033, F=3.814).COCLUSION: Doctors in Saidu Teaching Hospital (STH) have better knowledge and practices thanother healthcare cadres for infection control measures.KEY WORDS: Infection control, health care professionals, Saidu Teaching Hospital, Swat.