The Impact of Educational Programme On Knowledge And Practice of Nurses Regarding Prevention Of Surgical Site Infection In Khartoum State

Abstract

Background: Surgical site infection (SSI) is one of the most common healthcare-associated infections. Purpose: To evaluate the impact of education programme on the knowledge and practices of nurses towards the prevention of SSI in Khartoum State during 2017 to 2019. Methods: A facility-based interventional cross-sectional study was implemented in five hospitals of Khartoum State to evaluate the knowledge and practices of nurses towards SSI atbaseline and post an educational programme. A stratified random sampling technique was used. A questionnairecomprising two parts and a checklist was elaborated to collect sociodemographic data, knowledge and practices towards SSI. Results: Before the education programme, 91.1% of the participants had a poor knowledge, 7.5%(11/146) had good knowledge and 1.4% had an excellent knowledge. After the education programme on infection control, 74.7% (115/154) scored excellent, 21.4% (33/154) scored good and 3.9% (6/154) still had poor knowledge of infection control. There were significant differences between pre and post-training of the knowledge of infection control (p = 0.001). Before the education programme, the practice score of the participants ranged from 0 to 9 with a mean of 3.0±2.2. Following the education programme, the score of the participants ranged from 0 to 10 with a mean of 7.3±2.0. There were significant differences between before and after education program regarding practice of nurses towards SSI (p=0.000) Conclusion: Our finding revealed there is an urgent need for continuing educationprogrammes for nurses to improve their knowledge and attitudes. It emphasizes the importance of providing training programs for newly hired and on job nurses about infection control at regular intervals to keep them updated on scientific-based best practice.