Effectiveness of the Universal Safety Precaution Practice in Patient Care Among Nurses in Zonal Hospital Okrika, Okrika Lga, Rivers State

The focus of this study is to assess the practice and effectiveness of the Universal safety precautions in patient care among Nurses in Zonal Hospital Okrika, Okrika LGA, Rivers State. Three specific objectives and research questions were formulated to guide the study. The study population for this research comprised nurses in Okrika Zonal Hospital at the time of the study. The researcher made use of a cross sectional descriptive design using a self-designed questionnaire for data collection. The data was descriptively summarized with the use of frequency, percentages and tables. Findings of current study revealed that majority of the respondents (76.8%) wear ward coat during clinical work; 79% wear gloves while caring for patients; 76.4% wash hands after touching patients; and 78.3% wash hands after every clinical exposure. On the average, majority of the respondents (73.4%) know and practice universal safety precautions in patient care. Furthermore, majority of the respondents believe that Universal precautions promote the development of a conducive health care setting for patient care (85.2%); promote the health care delivery system in hospitals (87%); and agreed that complete adherence to universal safety precautions ensures an enhanced safety climate in health-care settings (88.1%). On the average, majority of the respondents (81.1%) agreed that universal safety precautions is effective in patient care. Lastly, findings showed the factors that hinders the effectiveness of the Universal safety precautions to include unavailability of personal protective equipment (87.7%), lack of efficient supervision and training (80.2%), excess workload (70.0%), and knowledge of risk of non-adherence (76.8%). On the average, majority of the respondents (76.8%) agreed that these factors hinders the effectiveness of the Universal safety precautions in patient care among nurses. It was recommended that health education should be given focusing on the key components of universal safety precautions which includes prevention of cross infection of blood borne pathogens