A universal precautions education intervention for health workers in Sardjito and PKU Hospital Indonesia

Abstract

A non-randomized control trial was conducted to develop and evaluate a culturally appropriate academic detailing intervention on the universal precautions knowledge, attitude and behavior of health care workers in hospitals. Fivety-five health care workers (44 nurses and 11 doctors) participated in the study. They were visited individually to discuss principles of universal precautions as well as the effect of automatic pilot on their work practices. Self-reported measures of knowledge and attitudes were collected from each participant before and after the intervention. A nurse observer collected measures of participants' compliance with the universal precautions guidelines according to a pre-determined protocol before and after the intervention. There was a significantly different level of knowledge, attitudes and compliance on universal precautions between the control and intervention hospital with p=0.0007, p=0.038 and p=0.03 respectively following the intervention. It is concluded that an academic detailing approach of education used in this study has significantly improved knowledge, attitudes and compliance scores.