The Effect of Infection Control Course on Nursing Students' Knowledge of and Compliance with Universal Precautions: A Quasi-experimental Study

Background Knowledge of and compliance with universal isolation precautions are important issues and were found to be low in many previous studies. However, there were no Jordanian studies that have examined the effect of an infection control teaching course on nursing students' knowledge of and compliance with universal precautions. Purpose This study aimed to assess knowledge and compliance levels, assess the relationships between knowledge and compliance, and examine the effect of infection control teaching courses on knowledge of and compliance with universal precautions among university nursing students. Methods A quasi-experimental pretest/posttest design using a convenient sample of 130 third-year nursing students was applied. The experimental group (n = 60) were third-year nursing students who registered for infection control clinical course for 3 months. On the other side, the control group (n = 70) were students at the same academic level but did not register for the course and never attended the course. Results The mean knowledge of and compliance with universal precaution were quite low, with a mean (SD) of 7.82 (1.98) and 49.36 (11.13) respectively. There was a statistically significant weak positive correlation between knowledge of and compliance with standard precaution (r = 0.28, P =.003). An independent t test indicated a significant effect of the infection control clinical course (t119 = -5.36, P =.01) on knowledge mean score (mean [SD], 15.51 [1.41]) and compliance with universal precaution mean score (mean [SD], 89.00 [10.17]; t119 = 6.26, P =.02) compared to the control group. Paired t test revealed that knowledge and compliance were significantly higher in the posttest than in the pretest in the experimental group compared with the control group. Conclusion Knowledge of and compliance with universal precautions were relatively low among nursing students. The application of an infection control teaching course helps improve both knowledge of and compliance with universal precautions among university nursing students.