Compliance with standard safety precautions and associated factors among health care workers in Hawassa University comprehensive, specialized hospital, Southern Ethiopia

BACKGROUND: Globally, health care-associated infections had become serious public health importance. Compliance with standard safety precaution is effective and inexpensive measure to improve quality of healthcare in reducing occurrence of healthcare associated infections. In developing countries, like Ethiopia adherence to recommended standard safety precaution is scanty. OBJECTIVE: To assess level of compliance with standard safety precaution and associated factors among healthcare workers in Hawassa comprehensive specialized hospital Southern Ethiopia. METHODS: An institutional based cross-sectional study was conducted at Hawassa comprehensive specialized hospital. Data were collected by using self-administered questionnaire. Study participants were allocated proportionally based on their profession by using stratified random sampling method. Data were entered and analyzed by using SPSS version 20.0. Bi-variable analysis and multi variable logistic regression model were used to check which variables were associated with dependent variable. P-values ≤ 0.05 were considered statistically significant. In this study the overall compliance with standard safety precaution among healthcare workers were only 56.5%. Being female healthcare worker AOR: 2.76(1.34, 5.54), married healthcare workers AOR: 4.2(2, 9.03), accessibility of safety box AOR: 3.4(1.6, 7.17), HCWs had perceived IP training AOR: 3.99(1.46, 10.9), availability of tape water AOR: 2.68(1.15, 6.2) and healthcare workers had internal infection prevention and control supportive supervision AOR: 5.8(2.54, 13.48) associated with compliance with standard safety precaution. CONCLUSION: According to findings of the current study, overall level of compliance with standard SP among HCWs considered to be very low. Factors such as healthcare workers being female, accessibility of safety box, availability of running tape water, training and supportive supervision were independent predictors of compliance with standard safety precaution. Thus ensuring availability and accessibility of safety precaution materials and regular observing and supervising healthcare workers’ practices are highly recommended.