Educating nursing staff regarding infection control practices and assessing its impact on the incidence of hospital-acquired infections

CONTEXT: Hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) are a global problem. One of the common causes of HAI is through the health-care workers, mainly because of failure to comply with the recommended infection control guidelines. AIMS: The aim of our study was to educate and train the nurses regarding infection control practices and assess the impact of training and assess whether this training actually made any change in the incidence of catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI) and intravenous (IV) line-related infections. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Baseline knowledge, attitude, and practices study of willingly participating 105 nurses regarding infection control was done. The incidence of CAUTI and IV line-related infection was calculated in the areas of their postings. They were trained via an educational module regarding infection control practices. We again assessed the incidence of CAUTI and IV line-related infections in the same areas 2 months after training. Data analysis was done using SPSS version 20.0. Student's t-test was used to analyze the difference in the prevalence of CAUTI and IV line-associated HAIs pre intervention and post intervention. RESULTS: There was reduction in the incidence of IV line-related infection, though it was not significant (P 0.15) and no change in the incidence of CAUTI after intervention. CONCLUSION: Single educational module though improved nurses' knowledge and attitude regarding infection control but failed to result in significant improvement in practices and incidence of HAIs.