On assessing nursing staff exposure to high risk infections

Work objective. To assess the knowledge of hospital infections of nursing staff in high-risk units. Research material and methods. The study took place at one Vilnius University Hospital. 110 nursing staff at high-risk units participated. The subjects were interviewed using the author’s questionnaire. Statistical data analysis was performed using IBM SPSS Statistics 19.0 and Microsoft Office Excel 2016. Methods of descriptive statistics were applied. The statistical reliability score was evaluated at a p value not greater than 0.05 (p≤0.05) and it is concluded that the differences are statistically significant. Results and conclusions. More than half of the subjects (59.1%) and more often those with higher education (67.5% and 72.2%) and those with more work experience correctly described HI. More than half (58.2%) of the subjects were aware of the risk factors for HI and were more likely to work for up to 10 years. The majority of the respondents identified the urinary catheter (70%), central venous catheter (52.7%), less frequently the intubation tube (29.1%), nasogastric probe (24.5%) as very high and high risk of HI.) and reintubation (16.4%). Those with higher non-university education more often attribute the presence of central veins (77.8%) and urinary tract (53.7%) as high risk factors. The vast majority of investigative preventive measures (glove replacement, hand hygiene) attribute the importance of priority action to invasive procedures, but 19.1% of glove replacement between two different procedures. attributes a moderately important factor to the study participants. A smaller proportion (9.1%) do not prioritize the glove replacement procedure after contact with the surrounding surface. All subjects report the change of gloves after contact with biological contamination as an important factor