Abstract

Background: Hospital-associated infections or nosocomial infections are those infections acquired during the patient’s stay in hospital. They form a major worldwide public health problem despite advances in our understanding and control of these infections. The best clinical care in the world can be worthless if patients pick up other infections while they are in the hospital. Hospital-associated infections  also  include  occupational  infections  which  occur  in  health  care  workers  due  to occupational hazard.

Materials/Methods: A cross-sectional study design with a quantitative approach was used to carry out this study title assessment of the knowledge and challenges faced by care givers towards the prevention of nosocomial infection at the Regional Hospital Buea from the period of November 2023 to April 2024 among the patients using a convenient sampling technique.

Results: This study revealed that the knowledge of patient on the causes of Nosocomial Infection was high(60%). It also revealed that there is a general poor level of knowledge by patients on the prevention of HAIs(58.8%). It also revealed some of the challenges face by patients in the prevention of HAIs such as insufficient knowledge on the preventive measures, Lack of personal protective equipments like gloves, mask, and protective eyewear and Inadequate waste disposal.

Conclusion: Thus there is a need to properly educate patient on what and how to prevent HAIs as well as creating wards and halls for care givers with the availability of PPE so as to reduce the risk of acquiring infections while in the hospital.

CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

1.0 Introduction

This  section  will  be  talking  about the  background  of  the  study,  the  statement  of  the problem,  objectives,  research  question,  significance  of  the  study,  justification  of  the  study,  scope of  the  study  and   definition  of  terms.

1.1 Background of the study

Health is the level of functional or metabolic efficiency of a living being. Health is both responsibility as well as right. It is the responsibility of those with power and right of those without power.  The  promotion  of  health  is  social,  and  political  as  well  as  individual responsibility.

Hospital acquired infections are a serious health problem resulting in an enormous burden of morbidity and mortality rate, and high health care costs studies have indicated that nosocomial infections occurred in 5-10%of all hospitalized patients in Europe and north America and in more than 40% in parts of Asia, Latin America, and sub-Sahara Africa (Lynch et al., 2010) national Nosocomial surveillance, (2004). Improvements were made, infection rates declined. At any time, over 1.4 million people worldwide suffer from infection complications acquired in hospital (Tikhomirov, 2008).

Tikhomirov,  (2008) reported that highest frequencies of nosocomial infections were recorded from hospitals in the eastern Mediterranean (11.8%) and south-east Asia Regions (10.0%) with a prevalence  of 7.75 in the European regions and 9.0% in the Western Pacific regions (10.0%), which a prevalence of 7.7% in European regions and 9.0% in the Western Pacific regions.In many West African countries, infection abound but not much study has been done to determine the proportion that is acquired from hospital and or health care providing facilities. In Ghana, Newman (2009) conducted such a study and provided data on the occurrence of nosocomial infection in Karle-Bu teaching hospital in area. These studies are therefore necessary and need to be conducted in many other parts of the country.

This recommendation has been implemented by many countries worldwide, USA, France and some developing countries, thus promoting surveillance and preventive hospital acquired infection (HAIs) in their hospitals, this has allowed for the identification of nosocomial infection risk factors, and effective intervention that help reducing their incidence by nearly 30% in some countries and 55% in Africa (Rasslan O, Seliem ZS, 2012),

In Cameroon few investigations have been conducted but an isolated study done in 2010 stated this prevalence at 20, 74%. To reduce the burden of the problem; WHO recommended that hospital acquired infections (HAIs) surveillance and prevention should be systematically integrated in all health system (Curtis VA, Danquah LO, 2009).

It was therefore based on this high mortality rate that the researcher carries out this study to assess patient knowledge on causes and prevention of Nosocomial infection. individual but also include social, emotional, spiritual and cultural well-being. This is a whole of life view and includes the cyclical concept of life-death-life (Ziebarth, 2016).

Hospital-associated infections or nosocomial infections are those infections acquired during the patient’s stay in hospital. They form a major worldwide public health problem despite advances in our understanding and control of these infections. The best clinical care in the world can be worthless if patients pick up other infections while they are in the hospital. Hospital-associated infections  also  include  occupational  infections  which  occur  in  health  care  workers  due  to occupational hazard (Biberaj, Gega, & Bimi, 2014).

An infection is considered nosocomial if it becomes evident 48 hours or more after hospital admission or within 30 days of discharge following inpatient care (Bello et al., 2011). Nosocomial infections increase patients’ morbidity, mortality, length of hospital stay and treatment cost (Kaye et al., 2014).

Nosocomial infection refers to as a hospital acquired infections or simply hospital infections are infections occurring during staying 48 hours or longer, which resulted in the use of the 48-hour criterion in several epidemiological surveillance systems (El-Gohary & Al Jubouri, 2014). Therefore, knowledge about the frequency and distribution of nosocomial infections is important to improve infection control measures as well as to develop effective preventive and curative strategies  which,  in  turn,  will  help  us  in  decreasing  incidence,  morbidity  and  mortality (Dasgupta, Das, Chawan, & Hazra, 2015).

Hospitals provide a favorable transmission path-way for the spread of nosocomial infections, owing  partly  to  poor  infection  control  practices  among  health  workers  on  one  hand  and overcrowding of patients in most clinical  settings on the other. The importance of hospital- acquired infections goes beyond its impact on morbidity and mortality figures in any country, and has profound economic implications. Prevention of health care-associated infections is the duty of all health care workers.

Infection control professionals require evidence-based educational content that facilitates reduction in nosocomial infections. Clinical and support staff in health care institutions are inundated with required training facilitated by accrediting bodies and institutional mandates (Biberaj et al 2014). Standard precautions are designed to reduce the risk of acquiring occupational infection from both known and unexpected sources in the healthcare setting. Strict adherence by healthcare workers to standard infection control precautions may prevent a percentage of these risks. For that healthcare workers should have adequate knowledge and practice about standard infection control precautions (Ogoina et al., 2015)

1.2 Statement of the Problem

Nosocomial infections also referred to as healthcare-associated infections (HAI), are infection(s) acquired during the process of receiving health care that was not present during the time of admission.An infection is considered nosocomial if it becomes evident 48 hours or more after hospital admission or within 30 days of discharge following inpatient care (Bello et al., 2011).

It is also referred to as hospital-acquired infections (HAIs).Hospital acquired infection is the major cause of long hospital stay and even mortality worldwide(WHO,2016)Several health establishments have put in place strategies to prevent Hospital acquired infections such as washing of hands during hospital stay etc; but most patients still neglect them .

This is probably due to ignorance about Hospital acquired infections (Yakob et al, 2015).During clinical internship, it was observed that patients neglected the importance of observing Hospital acquired infections.Thus an assessment of patients knowledge on the causes and prevention  of nosocomial infection will help reduce the rate of this infection among patients as well as reduce the morbidity and mortality rate.

1.3   Objectives          

1.3.1   General   Objective

To assess patients knowledge on the causes and prevention of HAIs at the Regional Hospital Buea.

1.3.2   Specific   Objective

1. To assess patients knowledge on the causes of Hospital acquired infections at the Regional Hospital Buea.
2. To examine the knowledge of patients towards the prevention of hospital acquired infection the Regional Hospital Buea.
3. To determine the challenges faced by patients towards the prevention of HAIs at the Regional Hospital Buea.

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