Assessment of knowledge and practice of standard safety precautions among Primary Health Care Workers in Plateau State North Central Nigeria

Abstract

Background: Standard safety precautions are the basic level of infection control precautions which are to be used, as a minimum, in the care of all patients. The control of spread of pathogens from any source is key in avoidance of transmission among health care worker.The practices of standard safety precaution helps to protect the patient by ensuring that the health care workers does not transmit infectious agents to the patients through their hands or equipment during patient care.Hence, this study was conducted to assess the knowledge and practice of standard safety precautions among Primary Health Care workers in Plateau State. Methodology: A cross sectional study conducted among 50 primary health care workers from 30 publicly owned Primary Health Care centers using quantitative method of data collection. Epi info statistical software version 3.5.4 was used for data analysis with a 95% confidence interval was used in this study and a p-value of ? 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Result: The mean age of the respondent was 34.5 9.9 years with more than half of the respondents, 28 (56.0%) as females. Most 34 (68.0%) of the health care workers had good overall knowledge of Standard Safety Precautions. Good practice of Standard Safety precaution was found among 39 (78.5%) of the respondents. Prior attendance of training had statistically significant influence on the respondents practice of standard safety precautions (odds ratio 12.9; p = 0.005). Conclusion: This study has demonstrated a reasonable good level of knowledge and practice of standard safety precaution among health care workers at the primary level care though with significant need for improvement in order to attain full compliance.