Nurses' Adherence to Infection Control Practices in Emergency Departments

Background: Follow-Up on Infection Prevention Measures It is an assortment of techniques intended to keep things free of microbes, Patient protection from diseases necessitates several actions. Preventing and controlling infections is one of the most crucial tasks for nurses. Using hand hygiene with personal protection equipment is a crucial step that can help prevent infections or their repercussions. The safety of patients and maintaining sterility and cleanliness in hospitals are the responsibilities of all nurses working there. Objectives: to evaluate the adherence of emergency department nurses to infection control protocols and recommendations. Methodology: This cross-sectional study selected a nonprobability (purposive) sample of 120 nurses working in emergency departments across three hospitals: Baghdad Teaching Hospital (50%), Al-Kindy Teaching Hospital (35.8%), and Sheik Zaydi Hospital 14.2%. The study was conducted from September 20, 2023, to 30 June 2024. collection tool, which consists of two parts: The first part is the demographic characteristics of the nursing staff (age, gender, level of education, years of experience in the emergency department, and participation in training courses related to infection control measures). Second part: Checklists were utilized for observation. The study instrument's reliability was assessed using the Statistical Package for Social Science Program (IBM SPSS) by applying Cronbach's Alpha. Results: The study finding shows that, based on the data, 66.7% of the respondents reported a fair level of practices about infection control measures. Sociodemographic factors such as qualifications notably impact nurses' practices regarding adherence to infection control practices. CONCLUSIONS: The researcher concluded that the nurses' practices were not at the level required (fair) to fit with the critical and special nature of the emergency department. Recommendations: Standard precautions are the basic level of the infection control process. The participants may possess satisfactory knowledge and compliance levels. However, more training programs and more focus on the standard precautions by educational institutes are needed for nurses to improve their knowledge and compliance with infection-control standard precautions.