factors of Healthcare Acquired Infection Prevention

Running head: INFECTION PREVENTION 1

INFECTION PREVENTION 10

Assessment of the knowledge, practice, and the associated factors of Healthcare Acquired Infection Prevention

Assessment of the knowledge, practice, and the associated factors of Healthcare Acquired Infection Prevention

Healthcare acquired infection/nosocomial infection/hospital acquired infections are becoming a major international challenge in many healthcare facilities especially in the low- or middle-income nations. It is anticipated that around 10 percent of patients in the healthcare facilities from developing nations are developing healthcare acquired infections and this subsequently leads to negative impacts on healthcare outcomes. It also leads to increase hospital stay, economic burden, morbidity cases, and increase in the mortality incidences. Some of the common healthcare acquired infections include Hepatitis B and C virus, HIV infections, and even Tuberculosis which are often transmitted by healthcare workers who are not observing the practice related to the infection prevention measures.

According to the United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention, there are about 1.7 million patients who have been hospitalized as a result of acquiring infection within the facilities while undergoing treatment for other healthcare concerns. Many studies reveal that simple infection control procedures like cleaning of the hands using alcohol-based hand rub is helping in the prevention of the spread of the disease. The increase in the infection rate caused by the healthcare acquired infection is due to the poor practices of infection prevention and control, lack of knowledge or failure to implement knowledge related to the process of preventing and controlling nosocomial illnesses, and other associated factors (Desta, Ayenew, Sitotaw, Tegegne, Dires, & Getie, 2018).

The Problem

The high burden of nosocomial infections is as a result of the absent of the standardized infection control prevention program in place. The main reason why there is absence of standardized infection prevention procedures is as a result of inadequate resources, improper sanitary situation and the poor hygienic practices. Healthcare infections which were absence at time when a patient is being admitted are acquired by patients during the process of healthcare services within the hospital. Healthcare providers are considered to be in the front line with regard to the process of ensuring that there is self-protection as well as making sure that patients are free from infections (Haque, Sartelli, McKimm, & Bakar, 2018).

The process of preventing infection prevention is involving and it involves the placing of major barriers between the vulnerable hosts and the pathogens as well as some of the major components of the safe and improved quality of services being delivered at the healthcare facility level. Therefore, healthcare acquired infections related mortality and morbidity can be prevented through having an effective prevention program such as proper hand hygiene. The process of implementing the standard precautions such as safety injections, isolations precautions, bathing among patients, antibiotic use or stewardship, vaccinations, environmental cleaning, disinfections, and the sterilization process through successful comprehensive departmental based safety program as well as surveillance are important steps which can be relied on for the purposes of control and prevention of the infections.

In resource constraint facilities, it is becoming hard to control infections rates of clients who are acquiring healthcare infections as well as the exposure of healthcare workers to such infections. There are some of simple standard precaution procedures as well as improved knowledge which have been found to be important when it comes to the reduction of the infections. Even though there is existence of such evidences in relation to availability of the level of awareness and practices in preventing infections and the associated aspects, there are reduced cases of exploiting such knowledge, practices, and the associated factors many healthcare facilities.

Significance of the problem

Low-cost intervention processes are available to help in preventing or controlling the cases of nosocomial infections. Majority of healthcare knowledge as well as adherence to the infection prevention is still very minimal. This therefore implies that improvement of knowledge as well as practice of healthcare employees with regard to the prevention of infection is important when it comes to the reduction of the burden caused by the healthcare acquired infections. The outcomes of this research work will be important as a contribution for the policy makers, programmers, and healthcare employees towards improvement of the clinical services and the means of achieving sustainable development objectives.

Identification of this problem is also important when it comes to the reduction of the mortality cases. The study of this problem is helping in the generation of the meaningful data with regard to the practices, knowledge, and other associated factors of healthcare acquired infections. This is important in processing the measuring the outcome of the patient safety practices. Through monitoring the process and the outcome measures as well as the evaluation of the existing relationship is important in establishing the good process which results in good health care outcomes.

Through identification of the problem related to the knowledge, practices and the associated factors in healthcare acquired infections, it is possible to have an effective process measure which is giving a reflection of the common practices which can be applied in healthcare setting. It enables the facility to make a selection of the outcome measures related to the occurrence, harshness, and the preventability of the outcome proceedings. It is estimated that over 1.7 million patients are suffering from the nosocomial infections in the United States. The overall direct cost of infections to healthcare facility is ranging between $ 28 billion to $ 45 billion.

Even though this range appears to be wider, healthcare acquired infections seem to be expensive. Additionally, some of these diseases are preventable; nevertheless, few healthcare facilities are still faced with the problem of controlling the issue. Therefore, identification of the gap with regard to the control of healthcare acquired infections is important in reducing its rate thus helping the nation and healthcare facilities to reduce the expenditures on treatment of the patients with nosocomial infections. The increased expenditure by the clients or the government is also associated with longer stay in the hospital due to the re-infection (Stone, 2017).

Purpose of this study

This study is therefore aimed at investigating the knowledge as well as the routine practices aimed at preventing of the hospital associated infection and its associated factors of preventing infection amongst healthcare providers. The outcome of this study is important towards development and implementation of the policies to help in addressing the existing gaps that is present in addressing issues of hospital associated infections.

Research Questions

This study will be guided by the following questions to help in meeting the objectives or the purpose of the study. These questions include:

· What are some of the prevention practices in place to help in the control of healthcare acquired infections?

· What is the knowledge of the healthcare providers with regard to the prevention and control of healthcare acquired infections?

· What are the associated factors with the knowledge of healthcare providers regarding the infection prevention?

Masters Essentials aligned with the topic

One of the most important essential with regard to the process of preventing nosocomial infections is the quality improvement and safety. Improvement in the quality of healthcare services as well as safety of the patients is an ongoing process within every department of the hospitals. It is important for the mastered prepared nurse to have the ability of articulating the techniques, equipment, the performance of measures, culture of the safety values, and the standards related to quality, and should be prepared to use quality principles in the organization. It also requires nurses to be an agent of change. The issues of hospital associated infections are becoming a major concern in many healthcare facilities. In order to overcome the challenges faced in ensuring that there is minimization of nosocomial infections, joint effort is required from both healthcare providers particularly nurses who are continuously interacting directly with the nurses to help in the reduction of the issue. Joint forces are needed to have a change in the practice as well as share the knowledge needed to help in reducing healthcare acquired infections.

Another important essential is the health policy and advocacy. There is a continuous change in the healthcare sector and this is influenced by the technological, economic, political, and the social-cultural aspects. Graduate master’s degree nursing program is having a requisite knowledge as well as skills needed towards promotion of health, helping in shaping the healthcare delivery, and the advancement of the values such as social justice through processing of policies processes and advocacy. As advocates, it is the responsibility of healthcare providers such as nurses to ensure that there is a change in the way through which the issue nosocomial infections are dealt with. Nurses and other healthcare providers need to look for alternative approaches through advocating for the new policies and incorporate them into healthcare system within the organization. Nurses have to be responsible towards making an improvement to the quality of healthcare delivery through understanding the political determinants of the system as well as using the knowledge learned in the class work to advocate for the change in the healthcare provision policies related to the prevention of hospital associated infections.

Collaboration towards making an improvement to the patients and population healthcare outcomes is another important essential. Healthcare providers must work together towards ensuring that the implementation processes of the new policies related to the prevention of infection is achieved.

References

Batran, A., Ayed, A., Salameh, B., Ayoub, M., & Fasfous, A. (2018). Are standard precautions for hospital-acquired infection among nurses in the public sector satisfactory? AMHS , 6 (2), 223-227. Desta, M., Ayenew, T., Sitotaw, N., Tegegne, N., Dires, M., & Getie, M. (2018). Knowledge, practice and associated factors of infection prevention among healthcare workers in Debre Markos referral hospital, Northwest Ethiopia. BMC Health Serv Res, 18, 465. Haque, M., Sartelli, M., McKimm, J., & Bakar, A. M. (2018). Healthcare-associated infections – an overview. Infection Drug Resist, 11, 2321-2333. Imad, F., Ayed, A., Faeda, E., & Lubna, H. (2015). Knowledge and Practice of Nursing Staff towards Infection Control Measures in the Palestinian Hospitals. ERIC, 6 (4), 79-90. Jahangir, M., Ali, M., & Riaz, M. S. (2017). Knowledge and Practices of Nurses Regarding Spread of Nosocomial Infection In government Hospitals, Lahore. J Liaquat Uni Med Health Sci, 16 (3), 149-153. Moyo, G. (2013). Factors influencing compliance with infection prevention standard precautions among nurses working at Mbagathi district hospital, Nairobi, Kenya. Doctoral dissertation, University of Nairobi. Stone, P. (2017). Economic burden of healthcare-associated infections: an American perspective. Expert Rev Pharmacoecon Outcomes Res, 9 (5), 417-422. Teshager, A. F., Engeda, H. E., & Worku, W. Z. (2015). Knowledge, Practice, and Associated Factors towards Prevention of Surgical Site Infection among Nurses Working in Amhara Regional State Referral Hospitals, Northwest Ethiopia. Surgery Research and Practice.