ABSTRACT
Background: Medication error is most common medical error and which is also under-reported particularly in developing countries. It can cause serious harm to the patients in several settings, particularly in hospitals. Aim and Objective: The aim of the study was to bring awareness among paramedical staff about medication error and to encourage them to report medication. Materials and Methods: This was a questionnaire-based-cross sectional study conducted over 6 months of duration in tertiary care hospital in 100 paramedical staff. Results: Out of 100 participants, majority of them (91%) knows about term medication error. Only 26% participants know how to report medication error in our hospital. Three-fourth (75%) do not know where to report, while 22% believes that it is professional obligation to report medication error. The majority of participants 88% agree that proper communication between health-care professionals minimizes medication error. About 77% participants believe that there is a need of independent body/committee for medication error in hospital. About 87% participants recommended training or CME about medication error in health-care professionals. Conclusion: The majority of participants had basic knowledge about medication error but lacuna on the reporting of medication error was noted. Continued medication education among paramedical staff may improver reporting.
ABSTRACT
Background: Hand hygiene is documented as one of the foremost techniques to prevent cross-transmission of germs. Objectives: This paper aims to assess the knowledge of hand cleanliness among medical students and working nurses. Methods: It was a cross-sectional descriptive study, carried over a sample selected by non-probability convenient sampling technique. The questionnaire used here to assess the knowledge and practice on hand hygiene was adapted from the World Health Organization (WHO) Guidelines on Hand Hygiene in Health Care. The data thus collected were presented in terms of counts and percentages. Chi-square test was used to test the significance of the differences, and a p-value of less than 0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Results: Overall, 92.08% of participants have received training in handwashing. Twenty-five (41.60%) medical students believed that the microbes already present with the patient were responsible for hospital-acquired infection (HAI). Medical students had significantly higher knowledge than working nurses regarding dryness of skin due to hand rubbing over handwashing (p<0.05). Medical students also had substantially higher awareness about the performance of handwashing and hand rubbing in sequence (p<0.05), which they think was not right. Knowledge on the colonisation of hands with harmful microbes was more with the nurses. Conclusion: There is a need to increase awareness among medical students and nurses regarding procedural hand hygiene methods to prevent HAI. The current findings can be a basis for conducting a training programme on hand hygiene practices for the medical students, including paramedical staff members.
ABSTRACT
Background: Hepatitis B is global infectious diseases with estimated two billions of the world population have contracted the infection, of them there are 350 million with chronic infection. Hepatitis B disease may lead to state of chronic carrier, liver cirrhosis and failure or hepatocellular carcinoma.Methods: This was a cross-sectional study which involved 100 intern, 100 resident doctors, and 100 paramedical staff; data collection was performed by a suitable self-administered, close-ended questionnaire.Results: Medical staff members had better knowledge about hepatitis B than the paramedical staff in the study. More than 50% of the paramedical staff didn’t know the correct mode of hepatitis b transmission. Attitude towards vaccination was seen significantly high in interns and resident doctors, as more than 88% had taken hepatitis b vaccine as compared to only 57% from paramedical staff had taken vaccine. Only 55% of paramedical staff had strictly followed universal precautions which was statistically significant in medical and paramedical staff.Conclusions: This study highlights the dissimilarities in knowledge, attitude as well as practices amongst different categories of healthcare personnel regarding hepatitis B infection. The most distressing situation was of paramedical staff that was at the lowest strata in terms of both knowledge and practices and therefore was at highest risk of hepatitis B infection.