ABSTRACT
Introduction: Hospital acquired infections (HAIs) continue to be a threat to hospital admissions and workers thus contributing to mortalities and morbidities. Complexity and type of services rendered by health facilities may determine health worker's attitude towards combating these infections. The objective of this study is to compare knowledge; attitude and practice of HAIs among health workers at the three levels of health care in Southwestern Nigeria. Methods: - This descriptive; comparative cross sectional study was carried out among 273 health workers in Osogbo in Southwestern Nigeria; using multistage sampling method. Pre-coded semi structured self administered and pre-tested questionnaires were administered on sampled health workers. Data was analyzed using the SPSS software 13.0 Results: - All health care workers at the three levels have good awareness that patients could be a source of HAIs. Awareness of common HAIs; awareness of hospital staffs and equipments and the environment as sources of transmission of HAIs were good for health care workers in both tertiary and secondary level care; but poor among primary health care workers. There was poor awareness of presence of hospital policy on HAI and presence of hospital committee on infection control among health care workers at the three levels of health care; but this is worst among primary health care providers. More health care workers in tertiary care has reported themselves to staff clinics when sick; more always washed their hands before and after touching clients and equipments while more has also ever notified HAIs before; when compared to secondary and primary. Attitude towards willingness to report HAIs was better in both secondary and tertiary health care workers. There is a good attitude towards readiness to wear protective devices; towards washing of hand s before and after touching patients and self reporting to staff clinic when sick among health care workers at the three levels of care Conclusion: Good knowledge and attitude; but poor practice characterizes nosocomial infections among tertiary and secondary level health care workers in Osogbo. These indices are worst and ranges from fair to poor among health workers at the primary health care level. Routine seminars on factors associated with occurrence of nosocomial infections could help to improve awareness and reduce its prevalence in our hospital settings