The degree of observance of infection control standards and its effective factors in the operating room staff in Hospitals of Maragheh University of Medical Sciences

Nosocomial infections are a major problem in modern medicine that have numerous causes and lead to many costs and complications. This study aimed to determine the observance of infection control principles by physicians and operating room staff of hospitals in Maragheh University of Medical Sciences and compare it with the standards.

The present study is a descriptive-analytical study that was conducted in 2020 in Maragheh. A questionnaire that was made by the researcher for each group working in the operating room units and a checklist for reviewing the operating room environment and equipment was used as special tools for data collection. Data with statistical tests of one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), unpaired t-test, and Pearson in SPSS 25 software were analyzed.

In total, 51 people participated in this study. 71.1% of participants were female and 28.9% were male. The average age was 34.81 ± 9.04 years. There was a significant relationship between observance of infection control standards and participation / non-participation in infection control retraining courses among anesthesia team members (p = 0.03) and surgery team members (p = 0.04). Also, there was a significant relationship between the field of study of the surgical team members and the observance of infection control standards (p = 0.047).

In general, the results of this study showed that the performance of the participants in terms of observance of infection control standards in the operating room was desirable. It is recommended that infection control retraining courses, especially for anesthesia personnel, be considered to maintain the current optimal condition as well as improve performance.