Measures of knowledge about standard precautions: a literature review in nursing

Abstract

Background: Standard precautions (SP) play an important role in hospital infection control, as well as in issues related to biosafety and security of patients, professionals and students active in direct or indirect health care delivery.

Objective: This research aimed to identify in the literature which instruments nurse researchers have used to evaluate knowledge, attitudes and compliance with SP for infection control.

Methods: A literature review was undertaken in the databases Web of Science, Bireme (Medline and Lilacs) and Scopus.

Results: 91.66% of the studies were ranked as evidence level IV; 66.66% of the instruments were structured questionnaires, 58.33% of which had been validated and half of these instruments presented reliability and validity scores for the instrument used. Publications were concentrated in 2009 (41.66%), mostly in English (75%), in nursing journals with impact factor above 1.60 (83.33%).

Conclusions: The instruments nurse researchers most employed were structured questionnaires associated with Likert-type rating scales.