Compliance with standard precautions and its relationship with views on infection control and prevention policy among healthcare workers during COVID-19 pandemic
Publication in refereed journal
CUHK Authors
Full Text
View Full-text in CUHK Digital Object Identifier (DOI) DOI for CUHK Users  |
Times Cited
Altmetrics Information
.
Other information
AbstractBackground: Standard precautions prevent the spread of infections in healthcare settings. Incompliance with infection control guidelines of healthcare workers (HCWs) may increase their risk of exposure to infectious disease, especially under pandemics. The purpose of this study was to assess the level of compliance with the infection prevention and control practices among HCWs in different healthcare settings and its relationship with their views on workplace infection control measures during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: Nurses in Hong Kong were invited to respond to a cross-sectional online survey, in which their views on workplace infection and prevention policy, compliance with standard precautions and self-reported health during pandemics were collected. Results: The respondents were dissatisfied with workplace infection and prevention policy in terms of comprehensiveness (62%), clarity (64%), timeliness (63%), and transparency (60%). For the protective behavior, the respondents did not fully comply with the standard precautions when they were involved in medical care. Their compliance was relatively low when having proper patient handling (54%) and performing invasive procedures (46%). A multivariate analysis model proved that the level of compliance of the standard precautions was positively associated with the satisfaction on infection control and prevention policy among high risk group (0.020; 95% CI: 0.005–0.036), while older respondents had higher level of compliance among the inpatient and outpatient groups (coefficient range: 0.065–0.076). The higher level of compliance was also significantly associated with working in designated team and having chronic condition of the respondents among high-risk and inpatient groups. Conclusions: Standard precautions are the most important elements to reduce cross-transmission among HCWs and patients while the satisfaction on infection control and prevention policy would increase the compliance among the high-risk group. An overall suboptimal compliance and poor views on the infection prevention and control guidelines is a warning signal to healthcare system especially during pandemics.
Acceptance Date23/03/2021
All Author(s) ListWong ELY, Ho KF, Dong D, Cheung AWL, Yau PSY, Chan EYY, Yeoh EK, Chien WT, Chen FY, Poon S, Zhang Q, Wong SYS
Journal nameInternational Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Year2021
Month4
Volume Number18
Issue Number7
PublisherMDPI
Article number3420
ISSN1661-7827
eISSN1660-4601
LanguagesEnglish-United States
Keywordsworkplace infection prevention, infection control guideline, infection control policy, standard precaution, occupational health, nurses
