Abstract:
Background: Standard safety precautions are a meant to reduce the risk of healthcare
associated infections transmission from both recognized and unrecognized sources. These
standard safety precautions are simple but enquire attention from all concerned bodies. In
Ethiopia including the study area, knowledge and practice of standard safety precautions
among healthcare workers in a public and private healthcare facility was not known well.
Objective: The aim of this study was to assess the knowledge, practice and factors associated
with standard safety precautions among healthcare workers working in Ambo town
healthcare facilities, Ambo, Oromia region, Ethiopia, 2021.
Methods: Institution based cross-sectional study was conducted among 224 respondents
from December 01-30, 2021 in 24 randomly selected healthcare facilities of Ambo town with
a pretested, structured and self-administered questionnaire. Data was entered into EpiData3.1
and analyzed using SPSS software version 25. Bivariable logistic regression analysis was
done and variables with p-value < 0.25 were considered as candidate for multivariable binary
logistic regression analysis. Adjusted Odds Ratios (AOR) and their 95% confidence intervals
were estimated to identify the presence and strength of associations, and statistical
significance was declared at a p-value <0.05.
Result: The level of knowledge and practices of healthcare workers regarding standard safety
precautions were found to be 82.6% and 80.4% respectively. Independent variables such as
being male (AOR: 2.53, 95%CI: 1.12-5.70), having >5 years of experience (AOR: 2.88,
95%CI: 1.16-7.13), receiving training on standard safety precautions (AOR: 3.29, 95%CI:
1.45-7.47) and perceived risk perception of Hepatitis B & C virus infection (AOR: 3.54,
95%CI: 1.55-8.05) were found to be significantly associated with knowledge of standard
safety precautions. Additionally, being a workers of public health facility (AOR: 0.13,
95%CI: 0.03-0.66), having >5 years of experience (AOR: 3.24, 95%CI: 1.21-8.73), received
training on standard safety precautions (AOR: 3.07, 95%CI: 1.03-9.21) and perceived risk
perception of HIV infection (AOR: 4.41, 95%CI: 1.82-10.69) were found to be significantly
associated with the practices of standard safety precautions.
Conclusion and recommendations: In this study, knowledge and practices of healthcare
workers in the study area was found to be good but further working on factors identified as
having significant association with an outcome variables were recommended to be considered
by different concerned bodies.
