Level of Awareness of the Need to Practice Universal Precautions among Nursing Students in Niger Delta University, Bayelsa State

Abstract

The study investigated the level of awareness of the need to practice universal precautions among nursing students at Niger Delta University, Bayelsa State. Two research questions and one hypothesis guided the study. The study adopted a cross-sectional survey research design. Purposive sampling technique was used to select 160 nursing students that have commenced hospital clinical experience during 2019/2020 session in the faculty of nursing. Data were collected using a self-structured Level of Awareness of the need to Practice Universal Precaution Questionnaire (LAPUPQ) and an In-depth Interview Guide (IDIG). Descriptive statistics of frequency count and percentage were used to analyse the data generated while Chi-square statistic was used to test the hypothesis at .05 level of significance. Findings revealed that majority of the respondents had high-level awareness of the need to practice universal precautions. Factors identified by the respondents that influenced the practice of universal precaution are unavailability of personal protective equipment (72.5%), consideration of the feelings of the patient while using some of the PPE that can frighten the patient (53.1%), the practice of UP is difficult in emergencies (45.0%). Gender was significantly associated with the level of awareness of the need to practice UP while age was not. However, the authors recommended that personal protective equipment should be provided in all health facilities and that obligatory training programmes in universal precautions for all nursing students should be made available to them before their posting to clinical areas to prevent and control the risk of cross infections and deaths.