Open AccessA Study of the Awareness Levels of Universal Precautions in High-risk Areas of a Super-specialty Tertiary Care Hospital
Author(s) -
Kanika Jain,
Ishita Singh,
Amit Lathwal,
Sunil Arya,
Ravinder Ahlawat
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
international journal of research foundation of hospital and healthcare administration
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2347-4602
pISSN - 2347-4254
DOI - 10.5005/jp-journals-10035-1044
Subject(s) - universal precautions , medicine , specialty , tertiary care , family medicine , health care , infection control , medical emergency , emergency medicine , human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) , intensive care medicine , economics , economic growth
Centers for disease control and prevention (CDC), Atlanta, in 1987, defined universal precautions and recommended that blood and body fluid precautions be consistently used for all patients. Although universal precautions have been in existence for a long period of time and the risk of transmission of blood borne infections to healthcare workers (HCWs) is very real, the awareness levels among HCWs to these precautions is still far from satisfactory. This study was conceived to study the knowledge of universal precautions in high-risk areas of a super-specialty tertiary care hospital in India among different categories of HCWs. A pretested structured questionnaire common to all the categories of HCWs was used to study the awareness levels of universal precautions. Each question was assigned a unit score. Seventy-five percent score in the questionnaire was taken as cut-off for adequate knowledge. The findings of the study reveal that the HCWs who had adequate knowledge of universal precautions were 29 (30%) out of 96 HCWs. These included 17 (53%) doctors, 8 (36%) nurses, 3 (31%) technical staffs and 1 (5%) housekeeping staff. How to cite this article Lathwal A, Arya SK, Singh IB, Ahlawat R, Jain K. A Study of the Awareness Levels of Universal Precautions in High-risk Areas of a Super-specialty Tertiary Care Hospital. Int J Res Foundation Hosp Healthc Adm 2015;3(2):98-102.