[The prevention of infections in child daycare centers: potential influential factors]

The Greater Montreal Public health departments have produced and distributed to daycare centres a manual on the prevention of infections in daycare personnel and trainees. In order to identify which factors can influence daycare management in applying the prevention measures suggested in the manual, a study was carried out based on the Precede/Proceed theoretical framework. A total of 134 (31.6%) daycare directors completed the questionnaire. Many were aware of the different recommendations to prevent infections. However, two of the recommendations were not followed by many: wearing gloves and verifying the vaccination status of their personnel, especially in private daycare centres. Participants had a positive attitude toward the various recommendations but mentioned several problems, specifically difficulty in obtaining the information about the vaccination status, lack of time and money, as well as having to deal with a poor physical organization of the work place. Among others things, the participants proposed that there be a greater involvement from schools, provincial daycare regulators, community clinics and public health departments.