Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Infection Prevention among Health Care Workers in Public Health Facilities in West Guji Zone, Oromia,Ethiopia, 2018

Background: Infection prevention and control play an essential role in patient safety and improve the quality of universal health coverage. The problem is more common in developing countries as compared to developed countries. This study aimed to assess knowledge, attitude and practice of infection prevention among health care workers in public health facilities in West Guji Zone, Oromia, Ethiopia, 2018 Methods and Materials: Facility-based descriptive cross-sectional study was done from may1-30, 2018.Data were collected by a self-administered structured pretested questionnaire from 203 health care workers. The health care workers were selected through a stratified sampling technique. After the data were checked for completeness, cleaning and coding were performed. The data was entered into Epi-Info version 3.5.2 and analyzed using statistical package for social sciences(SPSS) version 20.0. The data was summarized by descriptive statistics using the frequency, percentage, and graphs. Results: A total of 201 Health care workers were participated in the study, with the response rate of (99%). The proportion of Hhealth Care Wworkers about infection prevention who was knowledgeable, had a positive attitude, and safe practice was 120(59.7%), 82(40.8%), and 110(54.7%), respectively. From the respondent, 169(84%) of health care workers were use glove in daily activities and 32(16%) of health workers did not use a glove in their daily activities. Regarding potentially infectious and susceptible to infection 164 (81.6 %) and 37 (18.4%) of Health care workers think that both of them and patient/staff were infectious and susceptible to infection, respectively. Among the respondents, 138 (68.7%) of health care workers were not recapped needles after use and 71(31.3%) of health care workers recap needles after use. From study participant 174(86.6%) of health care workers were discarded needles and other wastes to their container. Conclusion: Generally, the result of this study revealed the level of knowledge, attitude, and practice of health care employees for infection prevention was low. The health care facility at which a study conducted should update health care worker's awareness by providing training services on PPE utilization and proper waste disposal system to increase the quality of health care services by preventing infection.