Knowledge, attitude, and practices regarding infection control measures among medical students

Objective: To assess the knowledge, attitude and reported practices of medical students regarding infection control measures.Methods: The cross-sectional, questionnaire-based study was conducted at one public and one private medical university in Karachi from January to February 2016. The students enrolled were in their clinical years of the Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery course and their knowledge, attitude and practice were measured regarding infection control measures. SPSS 19 was used to analyse data.Results: There were 413 medical students with a mean age of 21.78±1.10 years. Overall, 206(49.9%) students were from the private university and 207(50.1%) from the public institution. Students from the private institution had better knowledge compared to those from the public institution regarding hand hygiene (p\u3c0.001), needlestick injuries (p\u3c0.001) and surgical scrubbing (p=0.007), as well as better reported practices regarding hand hygiene (p\u3c0.001) and surgical scrubbing (p=0.001).Conclusions: Knowledge and practices of medical students regarding the method of surgical scrubbing and needlestick injury protocols in particular needed improvement