Knowledge about healthcare associated infections in teachers of a Venezuelan university

Abstract

Introduction: The health care associated Infections (HCAI) represents a public health problem. Adequate training of future professionals is key to prevent and control them, so it is imperative to have teachers prepared for this purpose.

Objective: To evaluate the knowledge about HCAI and its prevention in the teachers of the School of Health Sciences “Dr. Francisco Battistini Casalta” of the Universidad de Oriente, Venezuela.

Method: A descriptive, cross - sectional study with field design was carried out, where 90 teachers of Medicine (50), Bachelor in Bioanalysis (16) and Bachelor of Nursing (24) were included by stratified random sampling. A survey was conducted to investigate knowledge in three specific areas: general knowledge about HCAI, standard precautions and hand hygiene.

Results: 67.8% of the respondents were females with an average age of 46.9 years (SD ± 10.4; Range: 25-72). The average score in the survey was 18.08 points, above the average required to approve it. 66.67% of the respondents approved the survey. It was found that teachers have the basic concepts about standard precautions but not about the generalities of IAAS and hand hygiene where performance was poor.

Conclusions: Teachers have adequate knowledge about HCAI and its prevention. However, they present deficiencies in specific aspects such as generalities about IAAS, the proper use of gloves and hand hygiene.