Abstract:
According to the literature, there is a substantial difference in compliance with
infection prevention standard precautions in different health care settings, and with the majority of
studies focusing primarily on public health facilities. Although assessing the comliance of health
care workers in private and public institutions would give comprehensive evidence on existing
problems and appropriate prevention method, according to the knowledge of the investigator there
are limited evidence in Ethiopia particularly, in the study area. Therefore, this study will provide
evidence on the extent of compliance and associated factors among health careworkers in Bahir
Dar town hospitals.
Objective:- To assess the health care workers’compliance with standard precautions and
associated factors in hospitals of Bahir Dar town, in Amhara region, North West Ethiopia, from
June 10 to 30, 2021.
Method:- An institution-based cross-sectional study design was applied among 442 hospital health
care workers. The study subjects were selected using a stratified random sampling technique. The
data were collected using self-administered questionnaires and an observational checklist. The
collected data were entered into Epi data and exported into SPSS for analysis. Bivariate and
multivariable analysis were used to assess the association between independent variables and the
outcome variable. Odds ratios at 95% CI was computed to measure the strength of the association
between the outcome and the explanatory variables and was considered statistically significant
when the P-value was ˂ 0.05
Result:- of the 442 health care workers participated in the study, 41% were compliant with
infection prevention standard precautions. Consistent water supply availability [AOR = 1.92, 95%
CI = 1.63, 6.27], and access to infection prevention guideline [AOR=1.73, 95% CI =1.08, 2.77]
and availability of of PPE [AOR = 2.32, 95%CI =1.35, 3.98] and were of the factors significantly
associated with health care workers’ compliance.
Conclusion;- Two-fifths of health workers complied standard precautions. These findings suggest
that the majority of health-care workers are not following standard precautions and are at a
significant risk of developing a health-care-acquired infection. These identified factors should be
taken into account while developing interventions