Practice of Surgical Dressing among Health Care Workers at a Teaching Hospital, Chitwan

Abstract

Introduction: With growing concern over antimicrobial resistance and nosocomial infections, wound dressing techniques are required to prevent infection and shorten the healing time after surgery. Implementing a surgical wound dressing checklist can prevent surgical site infections and enhance healthcare professionals’ practices related to surgical wound dressing. This study aims to identify the practice of surgical dressing among health care workers at a teaching hospital, Chitwan.

Methods: A descriptive observation study was conducted at a Teaching Hospital in Chitwan. Using non-probability convenience sampling, 50 health care workers practicing surgical dressing from the Surgery, Gynaecology/Obstetrics, Neurosurgery, and Orthopaedic wards were selected as a sample. Data were collected using an observation checklist. Ethical approval was obtained from the Institutional Review Committee of Chitwan Medical College (IRC-CMC) with Ref. No. 198. Data analysis was performed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS).

Results: The study revealed that only 28% of the health care workers had good practice (≥ 90% of total score without missing critical steps). There was significant association between working unit and level of practice of surgical dressing (p=0.005).

Conclusions: Majority of health care workers have poor practice of surgical dressing. Hence, there is need to provide in-service training for health care workers to enhance their skills. Further, procedure manual related to dressing should be made available in all wards.