Abstract
Introduction
Infection prevention and control (IPC) is a measure used to prevent health care-associated infections in health care settings. A better understanding of the IPC situation, gaps and related challenges helps improve IPC. However, such evidence remains limited in Cambodia. This study aimed to assess the IPC situation at the Samrong Health Center, located in Phnom Kravanh OD, Pursat Province, northwest of Phnom Penh, and to make recommendations for improvement.
Methods
The study was based on the rapid survey data of the Master of Hospital Administration (MHA) class. The studied health center was selected purposely using a convenient method. We used a national IPC assessment tool to collect data on four key components of the IPC. For hand washing, we observed all 12 staff (10 nurses and 2 midwives) on their hand hygiene practices and related 5 moments; for waste management, 9 MHA trained students observed three rooms that were mostly used, namely, the outpatient consultation room, delivery room and postdelivery room. For environmental cleaning, data collectors observed everywhere, both inside and outside the health center building. Finally, we interviewed all staff to determine their knowledge of IPC.
Results
The overall IPC performance of the Samrong Health Center was good, with an IPC score of 69.2%; however, the IPC performance varied widely across the five core components. The hand hygiene performance for the total 5 moment scores was relatively higher than the average (60.0%) but low for the two moments, including before the clean/aseptic procedure (16.7%) and after touching the patient’s surroundings (25.0%), and the hand hygiene procedure was high, with an IPC score of 87.5%. Regarding to environmental hygiene with 20 recommended areas, and staff with IPC knowledge accounting for approximately 70.0% and 75.0%, respectively. Nevertheless, waste management performance, represented by 12 key indicators, had the lowest performance score (53.3%).
Conclusions
Our findings suggest that the IPC situation at the Samrong Health Center was relatively good, although it varied greatly across the key components. Therefore, further improvement is crucially needed, especially for waste management performance, such as poor waste management performance in the postdelivery room. For hand hygiene, particular attention should be given to the moment before cleaning/aseptic procedures and the moment after touching the patient’s surroundings. Improvements in environmental hygiene practices are also needed for indoor cleaning in some areas. In addition to staff training, staff incentives coupled with supportive supervision and the enforcement of rules are possible measures for improving the situation.