Effect of an Intervention Training Program on Hospital Acquired Infection Rates in Intensive Care Units at New-Damietta University Hospital Egypt

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

The Department of Public Health and Community Medicine, Faculties of Medicine, Al-Azhar Cairo* and New Damietta** Universities

Abstract

Abstract Background: Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) are among the most prevalent side effects in patient care, account-ing for a significant amount of morbidity and mortality. (HAIs) are also acknowledged to be a hazard in healthcare settings, impacting patient length of stay and increasing expenses globally. Aim of Study: To assess the health care workers (HCWs') knowledge, attitude, and practice before and after the imple-mentation of the health education program at Al-Azhar New-Damietta University Hospital, and to measure the incidence rates of health care associated infections within intensive care units at Al-Azhar New-Damietta University Hospital beforeand after intervention. Patients and Methods: An interventional prospective study was carried out over 15 month and conducted on de-partments of intensive care units (general and pediatrics ICU) in Al-Azhar University Hospital - New Damietta. In 2 ICUs (Medical and Surgical ICU) - 20 Beds, Pediatric ICU - and NICU (Neonatal ICU) 22 beds of a tertiary Health care hospital setting Al-Azhar University Hospital from April 2019 – January 2021. Patients admitted to the selected intensive care units during the study period (either before or after the intervention), were followed-up prospectively during their stay, starting from the date of their ICU admission till the date of their discharge from the ICU. Both sexes and all age categories were included in the study. Results: Improvement of knowledge, attitude and practice of the studied health care workers after application of health education. The highest percent of improvement was detected for attitude (43.8%) followed by knowledge (14.2%) and least improvement is detected for practice (6.41%). Improvement of overall patient infection rate (PIR), overall patient device rate (PDR) and Blood stream infection (BSI ) rate after health education program application with change of rate from 26% to 9.7 for overall patient infection rate (PIR), from 32.5% to 18.8% for overall patient device rate (PDR) and from 12.6% to 6.1% for Blood stream infection (BSI) rate.
Conclusion: Application of the Health Education Program decreased the HAI levels.

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