Abstract :
The goal of the study is to determine the level of awareness of nurses in primary healthcare centers about infection control prevention measures, and then develop an educational program for them to improve their awareness, as well as to determine the relationship between nurses' awareness and socio-demographic characteristics like age, gender, educational level, and years of experience, as well as the effectiveness of the educational program. A quasi-experimental study was conducted during the period from 21 January 2021 to 29 October 2021. It was conducted in the city of Ramadi (the first and second sectors). It included a multiple sample of (60) male and female nurses who were selected from (14) the first sector (14) in the second sector. The study sample was divided into 2 groups: (30) nurses who were exposed to the educational program as a study group and (30) nurses who were not exposed to the educational program as a control group. The tool of this study was adapted from a study by reviewing the related literatures [1], [2]. The data was collected using a questionnaire form that included 2 components. The first section delves into the social and demographic aspects of nurses, such as their (age, gender, educational level, years of experience, and training courses), while the second section focuses on nurses' knowledge and awareness of infection control prevention measures, which includes (90) items. The study's findings demonstrated that the educational program's execution helped the nurses in the study group. The finding of the study, after implementing program on study group, demonstrated a significant to improve the level of awareness and knowledge of nurses with a high degree through the arithmetic mean (2.73). The study's findings also revealed that there were substantial differences between the pre-test and post-test in the primary areas of nurses' awareness and demographic characteristics for the study group. The study concluded that nurses' awareness of preventive measures for infection control was at a low level before implementing the program, while this awareness increased to a good level after participating in the educational program. Following the implementation of a health education program aimed at boosting nurse awareness of infection control, the data demonstrated that the research group had a high degree of awareness. The study recommends the implementation of the national infection control program in all health institutions, emphasizing continuous medical education programs for all property working in health institutions, and continuous follow-up to the application of the program to prevent infection of patients and workers, and focus on holding seminars and lectures on an ongoing basis on infection control.
