Educational Intervention to Foster Best Infection Control Practices Among Nursing Staff

Abstract

Background: The continuous education of healthcare workers (HCW) is considered as one of the key components of infection control programs. Since nurses are the frontline healthcare staff; their optimal and periodic training in basic infection control practices is essential. Objectives: The current study aimed at assessing the pre-existing knowledge and evaluating the effectiveness of one day educational activities to improve the knowledge regarding infection control practices. Methods: A whole day educational activity comprising didactic lectures and hands-on training on routine infection control practices was conducted for a group of 34 nursing staff. Cognitive gain was assessed using a pre-validated, pre- and posttest questionnaire. The participants’ perceptions of the entire educational activity were scored based on a five-point Likert scale. Results: The average percentage of test score increased significantly from 19.71% (pretest score: 3.94 ± 2.3) to 76.69% (posttest score: 15.33 ± 2.4). The class-average normalized gain was 0.7097 (70.97%). The mode rating score of the participant’s perception increased from 3 (good) to 4 (very good). Conclusions: Educational intervention had a significant impact on the improvement in the knowledge of nursing staff. Similar periodic interventions should be encouraged to facilitate the learning of HCWs on the best infection control practices.