Bloodborne infections and standard precautions: Perceptions and adherence of staff nurses in four hospitals in Roxas City

Abstract

Health is essential to man in order to maintain his well-being and reach his maximum potential. However, disequilibrium is inevitable. This is one reason why we seek for the help of healthcare workers. Health authorities set guidelines on standard precautions to protect the healthcare workers and the recipients of their care. Nevertheless, healthcare workers are being infected by preventable bloodborne pathogens despite the guidelines, their knowledge on the importance of its implementation and their concern for their own health and the patient. Therefore, the reasons for the variability of the healthcare workers’ compliance to these guidelines should be taken into consideration. This non-experimental descriptive correlational study was conducted generally to determine the relationship between perceptions and adherence to standard precautions among staff nurses in four hospitals in Roxas City. The systematic sampling with a random start determined the 193 staff nurses who participated in this study. One-shot survey was done using a researcher-made questionnaire in order to gather the data on the staff nurses’ personal profile, their perceptions in terms of their susceptibility to and severity of bloodborne infections, perceptions on the benefits and barriers to standard precautions and their adherence to standard precautions. Analysis of data involved the use of both descriptive and inferential statistical tools. The level of significance that the researcher used is 0.05. Results show that a staff nurses’ area of assignment was the only variable that was significantly related to the nurses’ perceived susceptibility to bloodborne infections and the type of hospital a staff nurse where a staff nurse is currently employed was the only profile found to be significantly related to the nurses’ perception on the benefits of the standard precautions. Further, none of the respondents’ profile was found to be significantly related to their perceived severity of bloodborne infections and perceived barriers to standard precaution adherence. Further, only age was significantly related to the level of adherence to standard precautions and only perceived benefits of the standard precautions was found to be significantly related to the level of adherence to the standard precautions of staff nurses. Further, staff nurses perceive bloodborne infections as a threat to their welfare and thus they find standard precautions to be beneficial in lessening their chances of being exposed, infected or transmitting these pathogens. However, existing barriers result to the failure of staff nurses to adhere to these guidelines. This implies that transmission of pathogens in the workplace is still unavoidable.