FACTORS AFFECTING COMPLIANCE WITH UNIVERSAL STANDARD PRECAUTION AMONG NURSES IN TERTIARY INSTITUTION, EDO STATE.

 ABSTRACT

Standard precautions are meant to reduce the risk of transmission of pathogens from both recognized and unrecognized sources. This study assessed Compliance with universal standard precautions among nurses in University of Benin Teaching Hospital, Benin City. A descriptive survey design was adopted in this study and the study’s population comprised of 257 nurses across six wards in UBTH. Random sampling technique was used. A self-structured questionnaire was used to get data from the respondents which was validated by the researcher’s supervisor and yielded a reliability score of 0.81 during the pilot study. Descriptive statistics such as frequencies, percentage and means were used to analyze the data obtained while Chi-square statistics was used to test the stated hypotheses of the study. The result shows that 74.3% of the respondents exhibiting correct knowledge of universal standard precaution. The grand mean of the respondents’ responses to compliance with universal standard precautions among nurses was computed as 3.08 which is above the decision point of 2.50, thus indicating a good compliance with universal standard precaution. Factors such as unavailability of Personal Preventive Equipment (PPE), hospital policies, emergency situations, years of practice, attitude of nurses and prompt supervision by infection control unit influences compliance with universal standard precautions among nurses in UBTH. This study sheds light on the compliance with universal standard precautions among nurses in University of Benin Teaching Hospital, Benin City. Nursing care is one of the major health care services that contribute significantly to the patient healing process. Hence, compliance with universal standard precautions is of utmost importance. This study found that nurses in UBTH have moderate knowledge of universal standard precautions and a good compliance with universal standard precautions.  This study thus concluded that there is a fair knowledge and good compliance with universal standard precautions among nurses in University of Benin Teaching Hospital, Benin City.