Knowledge Attitude and Practice towards Infection Control Measures amongst Medical Students in a Medical Teaching Tertiary Care Hospital

Introduction: Health care associated infections (HAIs) are likely to be the most common complication of hospital care. World Health Organization (WHO) estimates these infections to occur among 7% - 12% of the hospitalized patients globally, with more than 1.4 million people suffering from infectious complications acquired in the hospital at any time. Keeping this in mind, the present study was conducted to delineate the level of knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) for the use of proper disinfection procedures among the final year undergraduate medical students in a tertiary care hospital and teaching institute. Methodology: Present study was conducted at Government Medical College, Surat, a tertiary care hospital and teaching institute. The participants who gave consent were provided with a pre-tested questionnaire that included several questions on knowledge attitude and practices on hospital acquired infections and its control practices. Analysis of the answers was done based on KAP score. Result: 80 students who consented were included in the study. 75% of the study population had correct knowledge about the most common health care associated infections (HAIs), being infection of venous access, urinary tract infection, respiratory infections and surgical site infections, based on their current knowledge on hospital acquired infections. Majority of study participants agreed with the fact that the inappropriate application of disinfection procedures increases the risk for a health care worker of either acquiring or transmitting a HAI from/to a patient. >90% participants had a good attitude towards risk of getting or transmitting any infectious disease by a Health care worker (HCW) while working and the utility of the application of disinfection procedures during work would reduce the rates of HAI. Practices of the students towards disinfection during performance of certain medical procedures ranged from 10% to 88% of the times showing poor practices of the medical students in following disinfection practices. Conclusion: In the present study the knowledge of medical students for the most common cause of hospital acquired infection was satisfactory. The overall attitude of the students was satisfactory as the mean score was 8. The practices of the students for the application of disinfection during performance of certain medical procedures were also satisfactory, although time to time training and tutorials of these students can help in increasing their knowledge, attitude and practices.