Abstract:

Background: Healthcare workers (HCWs) are exposed to blood-borne infections by pathogens, such as HIV, and hepatitis B and C viruses, as they perform their clinical activities in the hospital. Compliance with universal precautions has been shown to reduce the risk of exposure to these pathogens. This study was aimed at assessing the knowledge and level of compliance with universal precautions and identifies factors associated with poor compliance to universal precautions among HCWs at Bugando Medical Centre.

Methods and Patients: This was a cross sectional study to assess the knowledge, practice and factors associated with poor compliance universal precautions among HCWs at Bugando Medical Centre from December 2014 to February 2015.

Results: There were 200 participants including 62 (31.0%) doctors, 74 (37.0%) nurses laboratory personnel 34 (17.0%) and 29 (14.5%) auxiliary HCWs. More than three quarters (82%) of participants had adequate knowledge of universal precautions. There were statistically significant difference between of universal precautions and gender (females (94.7%) versus males (65.1%), job category (more nurses (94.7%), medical doctors (90.3%) and laboratory technologists (82.4%) compared with 31.0% of auxiliary HCWs), working experience (≥ 5 years) and previous training on universal precautions (P<0.001). Out of 200 HCWs, 154 (77.0%) practice universal precautions. Working experience (≥ 5 years) and previous training on universal precautions were significantly associated with good practice of universal precautions (P < 0.001). There was a strong correlation between knowledge and compliance (practice) with universal precautions (r=0.76, p<0.001). Factors associated with poor compliance with universal precautions as reported by HCWs included lack of personal protection equipment (69.5%), lack of knowledge (65.0%), emergency situations (63.0%), presumption that patient is not infected with HIV/HBV (59.0%), time constraints (53.0%) heavy workload (48.0%) and absence of penalties.

Conclusion: There was adequate knowledge and a fair level of compliance among HCWs towards universal precautions. These findings suggest that training of health care workers to increase their knowledge about blood-borne pathogens and universal precautions could improve their use of universal precautions and thus reduce health care workers’ risk of blood-borne pathogen exposure. Factors responsible for the poor compliance with universal precautions need to be addressed.