Knowledge and practice of injection safety among nurses at university of Calabar Teaching Hospital (UCTH), Calabar, Nigeria: implications for nursing education

Abstract

Exposure to blood borne viruses, by health care workers has been on the increase with nurses mostly affected. These exposures constitute serious challenges in the health care setting as they are common causes of illness and mortality among health care workers including hospitalized patients. Practice of standard precautions has been shown to reduce the risk of exposure to blood and body fluids. Over the years, injection safety has become an integral part of infection control in view of many diseases that are transmitted through unsafe injection practices. This study was conducted to assess the knowledge and practice of injection safety among nurses in UCTH, Calabar using a descriptive research design. The specific objectives were to assess the level of knowledge of nurses about injection safety, assess injection safety practices and ascertain the barriers to injection safety practices among nurses in UCTH. Purposive sampling was used to select one hundred and ninety one (191) nurses across the wards in UCTH Calabar. A checklist containing 37 items was used to elicit information. Frequency and percentages were used for descriptive data while the hypothesis was tested using Chi square (X²) analysis at 0.05 level of significance. Result revealed that 59.7% of the respondents had good knowledge of injection safety and 66.0% had good practice of injection safety while 6.8% had poor practice. Barriers to injection safety practices included inadequate supply of injection safety material, none display of injection safety guidelines. Statistical analysis revealed a significant relationship between level of knowledge and practice of injection safety among nurses (P = 112.8 < 0.05). Recommendations: health care administrators and nurse leaders should display injection safety guidelines, supply injection safety materials and ensure that more nurses are recruited into the workforce.

Keywords: Injection Safety, Nurses, Knowledge and practice