Knowledge, attitudes, and practices of contact precautions among Iranian nurses

Knowledge, attitudes, and contact precaution practices were surveyed in nurses at Shiraz University of Medical Sciences.

Two hundred seventy nurses, midwives, and auxiliary nurses completed a questionnaire consisting of 8 knowledge items with corresponding attitudes and practices items.

Compliance with precaution practices was low, 19.5%, and little more than half, 51.8%, held positive attitudes toward the guidelines, whereas 65.5% could correctly answered all precaution knowledge items. Nurses with correct knowledge were 11.3 times more likely (P < .0001) to hold positive attitudes toward the guidelines and 14.2 times more likely (P < .0001) to comply with all 8 precaution practices, and compliers were 6.3 times more likely (P < .0001) to hold positive attitudes than noncompliers.

Although correct knowledge was associated with compliance and positive attitudes, the proportion of nurses who held positive attitudes also had good knowledge, and compliance with practices was not abundant. Better training coverage may result in compliance with precaution practices becoming the norm.