Assessment of Nurses’ Practice of Standard Precautions in Hospitals of Babil Governorate, Iraq

Hospital-acquired infection (HAI) is one of the most frequent issues that hospitals are faced with in every country worldwide. Nurses are an essential part of the medical workforce that play a special role in preventing the transmission of infections within hospitals by implementation of infection prevention standard precautions. This study aimed to assess the level of nurses’ practice regarding standard precautions. 400 nurses from eight hospitals in Babil governorate are included in this cross-sectional study. To assess the knowledge and practice levels, was used an interview questionnaire. SPSS- 27 was used to analyze the data collected from September 2022 to March 2023. Among 400 nurses, the mean age was 29.07 years and a large number of them (43.8%) had a diploma; while most of nurses had less than 5 years of work experience, the main result revealed that 51.5% of them had poor practice regarding standard precautions. The majority of nurses did not always practice these precautions, so there is a need to hold educational courses and training workshops for nurses to improve their practice of these measures.