Infection control measures among interns / house surgeons in teaching hospitals under University of Medicine (1), Yangon.

Health care workers are responsible for prevention and control of communicable diseases in the hospital environment. This study aimed to focus on infection control measures among house officers. A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted in 2010 at three teaching hospitals in Yangon City by introducing anonymous self-administered questionnaires to randomly selected 150 respondents. SPSS version 16.0 was used for analysis. Over half of the respondents had high knowledge and perception but the practice was poor. Infection control messages acquired through health talks, seminars and media were infl uencing factors on knowledge while training programs signifi cantly infl uenced both knowledge and perception. Senior house offi cers had significantly higher mean perception scores than their juniors (p=0.005). Their hand washing practice was signifi cantly infl uenced by newspapers and magazines (p=0.003) and poster and pamphlet(p=0.056). Compliance on utilization of surgical mask as a precautionary measure for airborne transmission was associated with knowledge (0.020), adequate supply in wards (p=0.001) and donation from medical product company (p=0.042). They bought gloves for handling infectious materials (p=0.000), and needle recapping practice before discarding was related to knowledge (p=0.05). Knowledge, perception and practice of house offi cers were interrelated to each other. Further education and training of house surgeons, resource allocation and continuous monitoringwere necessary for proper infection control and safe hospital environment.