Assessing the effectiveness of an educational intervention on knowledge of infection control practices including Covid-19 among health care workers

ABSTRACT

Introduction and Aim: Healthcare workers (HCWs) are always at a risks of contacting infection due to their frequent exposure to infected individuals. Knowledge regarding various infection control practices especially in this pandemic era is mandatory to safeguard the HCWs. An interventional study was carried out to assess the level of knowledge of Infection control practices and standard precautions with especial reference to COVID-19 among the health care workers of a tertiary care teaching Hospital. Materials and Methods: A total of 202, undergraduate students (UGs), post graduate students (PGs) and non-teaching staff (NTS) participated in this study. A pre-test self-structured questionnaire regarding infection control practices and standard precautions with especial reference to COVID-19 was distributed to all the participants. The study participants were then trained by faculty of Microbiology and infection control team vigorously. The post-training questionnaire was subsequently given to the same group of subjects. The data from before and after training was evaluated and compared. Results: On post-training evaluation after intervention, there was a significant increase in knowledge of various infection control practices among HCWs, as seen by comparing the results of the post-test questionnaire to its pre-test counterpart, because the HCWs' doubts were cleared in the education sessions. Conclusion: The knowledge regarding the various infection control practices among the HCWs is short lived and significant increase was observed on post training. The health care settings should make a policy to carry out mandatory rotational repeated trainings by the Infection control team for all the groups of HCWs for better compliance.