Abstract:
Introduction- Surgical site infection is the second most common health care institution
infections of developed countries. There is limited evidence regarding the practice of infection
prevention of surgical site infection in developing countries. Therefore, this study aimed at
addressing this gap.
Objective- this study was to assess practice of post operative surgical site infection prevention
and associated factors among nurses working at Harar town hospitals from February 5- 30, 2017.
Method- A cross sectional study design employing quantitative method was conducted. The data
were collected from 414 nurses working in all wards of selected hospitals in the Harar town.
Then data entered to Epidata software version 3.02, and checked, validated and exported to SPSS
version 16 and analyzed. Univariate and bivariate logistic regression were run for factor variable
selection and the multivariate logistic regression to analysis variables that fulfill the criteria.
Result- A total of 414 questionnaires were completed. The overall knowledge of nurses about
post operation surgical site infection prevention was 8.9% good, 33.1% moderate and 58% poor
knowledge. The overall practice of surgical site infection prevention practice indicated that
majority, 295(71.3%) had poor practices. The factors significantly associated with Surgical site
infection prevention practice of nurses were knowledge (AOR 2.390; 95% CI: 1.126-5.073), age,
28 -37yrs (AOR 3.721; 95% CI: 1.704 – 8.129) and age, 38 -47yrs (AOR 3.313; 95% CI: 1.307 –
8.394). The study revealed that 71.3% of nurse had poor practice about post-operative surgical
site infection prevention.
Conclusion- Being young age of nurses and having good knowledge level about wound care
were main independent associated factors for good practice among nurses.
Recommendation- the stakeholders of nursing service should be provided effective in-service
training.
