Barriers to infection control routine practices and problem-solving strategies among nursing students and instructors – A cross-sectional survey

• Published in: Canadian journal of infection control 2021-01, Vol.36 (4)
• Main Authors: Hamed, Abubaker M, Moralejo, Donna, Pike, April, Curran, Vernon
• Format: Magazinearticle
• Language: English
• Subjects: Collaboration; Communication; Confidence; Disease control; Feedback; Infections; Medical research; Nurses; Nursing care; Nursing education; Personal protective equipment; Problem solving; Questionnaires; Role models; Students; Workloads
• ISSN: 1183-5702

Background: High nursing workload, negative role models, and inconvenient location of alcohol-based hand-rub dispensers are among the most common barriers that prevent nursing students and nurses from adhering to Routine Practices (RP). The aim of this study was to identify if nursing students and instructors encountered these three barriers, what strategies they used to address them, and how confident they were about applying problem solving in addressing them.Method: A cross-sectional survey was conducted in three nursing schools in Eastern Canada, and included 577 undergraduate nursing students, and 20 nursing instructors. Data were collected using the Routine Practices Problem-Solving Questionnaire. Frequency distributions were used to describe the participants’ characteristics and each item in the questionnaire. Pearson chi-square test was used to assess relationships between the level of confidence and participants’ characteristics.Results: We found that only 25% to 44.2% of students and instructors reported that high nursing workload, negative role models, and inconvenient location of alcohol-based hand rub were among the most common barriers which prevented them from adhering to Routine Practices. Although they encountered these three barriers, only 21.1% to 30.2% of students indicated that they used problem solving to address them. However, both groups of participants identified other strategies that can be used to address these three barriers. More instructors, compared to students, were very confident/confident about applying problem solving to address these barriers. There was a significant association between nursing students’ levels of confidence and their training in RP as well as their training in problem solving related to RP (p< .0001), but no significant association between the instructors’ level of confidence and these characteristics (p > 0.05).Conclusion: Understanding of these three barriers, and knowing possible strategies to address them, including problem solving, can potentially help infection control practitioners in their discussions with nurses, students, and instructors to improve adherence to RP.