Tesfalidet Markos, Shimeles Ololo Sinkie and Muluneh Getachew Garedew
Introduction: Healthcare associated infections are alarming public health problems globally despite availability of low-cost infection prevention and control measures to break its chain of transmission by improving level of compliance to them.
Aim: To measure health professionals’ level of compliance to infection prevention practices and associated factors in all public hospitals of Kambeta Tembaro zone, Ethiopia.
Method: Facility-based cross-sectional study design was employed among 401 health professionals that were selected through simple random sampling technique in the public hospitals of the zone. Logistic regression model was fitted to determine presence of statistically significant associations between the dependent and independent variables at p-value <0.05 and AOR with 95% CI.
Results: Two hundred twenty-six (57.8%) health professionals had a good compliance towards infection prevention practices. Concerning standard precautions, 167 (42.7%), 260 (66.5%), 130 (33.2%) and 98 (25.1%) of health professionals rated their hand hygiene, use personal protective equipment, safe injection and sharp waste segregation practices as good, respectively. Availability of guidelines, training status, sex, marital status and knowledge of health professionals were significantly associated factors with compliance to infection prevention practices.
Conclusion: A significant proportion of health professionals had good compliance with infection prevention practices despite there was poor adherence to hand hygiene, safe injection and sharp waste segregation among them. Therefore, Ethiopian ministry of health and other concerned bodies should work hard to avail infection prevention guidelines and address training gaps to increase knowledge of health professionals and make public hospitals safer place for health providers, patients and visitors.
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