Knowledge, attitude and practice of nurses in the prevention of nosocomial infection among in-patients in UNIOSUN teaching hospital, Osogbo

Introduction: Nosocomial infection is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality among inpatients in the hospital and constitutes a serious public health risk that impacts millions of people worldwide. Adopting infection prevention techniques has the greatest potential to significantly lower the population's risk and incidence of Nosocomial Infection, especially in healthcare systems with limited resources. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practice of nurses toward the prevention of Nosocomial Infection. Methodology: This was a descriptive cross-sectional research design. Reliability was done through pilot testing, face and content validity of the instrument were done. The study was carried out among one hundred and ninety-five (195) Nurses working in UNIOSUN Teaching Hospital, Osun State, Nigeria between July and October 2023. An adapted questionnaire was used for data collection and data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics of frequencies and percentages while inferential statistics of chi- square was used to test the hypothesis at 0.05 level of significance. Results: The result showed that 86% of the respondents had good knowledge, 53.1% had negative attitudes and 84% had poor practices of prevention of nosocomial infection. The study also revealed no significant relationship between demographic characteristics of age, gender, marital status, religion, ethnicity, years of experience, ward/ unit, professional rank, and knowledge of nosocomial infection. Also, no statistically significant relationship between knowledge and practice of prevention of 2 nosocomial infection (x =0.231, df = 1, and p=value > 0.05). Conclusion: This study therefore concluded that there existed adequate level of knowledge but negative attitude and poor practice in the prevention of nosocomial infection among nurses. Also, there is a need for proper in-service training for nurses and midwives, as well as provision of adequate resources for effective practices of nosocomial infection prevention within the hospital.