RESUMEN
OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the roles of infection control nurses (ICNs) and to detect problems, obstacles during work and needs for support in community hospitals. MATERIAL AND METHOD: A descriptive study, data from interview and questionnaire survey of 2 ICN from HA awarded hospitals and 146 IC nurses from hospitals applied for HA. RESULTS: From April to May 2002, questionnaires were returned for 115 (81.56%) plus 7 interviews for a total of 122 samples. The practiced HA IC roles included counseling (86.5%), surveillance (83.1%), administration (82.8%), employee health (82%), education (80%), quality development (76.3%), epidemic investigation (72.2%) and research (10.4%). The major problems and obstacles included inadequate IC knowledge, multiple responsibilities, inadequate cooperation, less administrative support, inadequate budget and documents. CONCLUSION: The present study suggested that the IC research role was the least done because of inadequate knowledge, too heavy work load and lack of administrative support.