Missed Nursing Care Infection Prevention and Control and its Reasons in the View of Health Care Providers: A Cross-Sectional Study

Nursing care is an essential part of health care services and should be fully provided. Missed nursing care is a major threat to patient safety and health care quality. The purpose of this study was to determine the amount and reasons for missed nursing care in infection control and prevention from the point of view of care providers working in the medical, educational, and therapeutic center of Besat Sanandaj during 2023.

This cross-sectional study was conducteed in Besat Hospital, one of the teaching hospitals of Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences. The research samples in this cross-sectional study included 389 nurses and midwives working in Besat Hospital who were included in the study by census. To collect data, three tools were used: a demographic information registration form, a questionnaire on the missed nursing care in infection prevention and control, and a questionnaire on factors related to missed care.

The findings of the present study showed that the average score of missed nursing care in infection prevention and control was 75.83 ± 23.28 and below the average. The most important missed nursing care from the point of view of the nurses and midwives of Besat Hospital was the use of personal protective equipment by the service personnel of the department (4.88 %), the report of the patient's infection status when transferred to another department or paraclinical unit such as radiology (3.86 %), and teaching patients about bathing before surgery (3.86 %). The most important factor of forgotten nursing care was unexpected increase in workload and number of patients in the ward (79.69 %) along with insufficient number of nursing and midwifery personnel in the ward (32.75 percent). A statistically significant relationship was observed between forgotten nursing care in infection prevention and control with the related factors (P = 0.0001), (R = - 0.1940).

The missed nursing care in the prevention and control of infection from the point of view of nurses and midwives of Besat Hospital was average. The most important factor was the unexpected increase in the workload the number of patients and the lack of personnel. The people participating in the research emphasized the role of systemic, organizational, and management factors in preventing effective infection control. Therefore, it seems necessary to reduce the factors that cause missed care with proper planning and management by reducing nurses' workload and providing budget and manpower.