title: Assessment of infection control knowledge, attitude and practice among healthcare workers during the Hajj period of the Islamic year 1423 (2003).
abstract: We assessed hospital infection control knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) of healthcare workers (HCWs) during the Hajj season of the Islamic y 1423 (2003). A self-administered structured questionnaire was used to collect the data. A total of 392 HCWs was studied, of whom 215 (54.8%) were nurses and 177 (45.2%) were doctors. 315 (80.4%) HCWs worked in hospitals, whereas 77 (19.6%) worked in primary healthcare centres. Of the 392 HCWs, 164 (41.8%) were from Makkah, and the remaining 228 (58.2%) were recruited from other regions in Saudi Arabia. A good proportion (81.8%) of HCWs correctly answered at least 5 of the 11 knowledge statements. However, obvious deficiency of knowledge appeared concerning other important hospital infection control measures. A smaller proportion (61.9%) of HCWs achieved a score of at least 4 out of 7 for attitude statements with unacceptable attitude for the remaining 3 areas. Response to questions concerning practice showed that nurses tended to be better than doctors (p-value=0.204), but both groups reported variable compliance to hospital infection control practices in terms of strict or near-strict adherence. In conclusion, training of HCWs is needed to improve KAP in infection control.
authors.affiliation: Department of Community Medicine, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Tawfik M
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Ghabrah
authors.forename: Tariq A
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: Madani
authors.forename: Ali M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Albarrak
authors.forename: Mohammad A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Alhazmi
authors.forename: Tarik A
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: Alazraqi
authors.forename: Mugbil A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Alhudaithi
authors.forename: Abdulrahman H
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Ishaq
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D017053:Infection Control / Q000592:standards*; D007514:Islam; D008297:Male; D009726:Nurses; D010820:Physicians; D012529:Saudi Arabia; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires