KNOWLEDGE AND COMPLIANCE TO PRACTICE OF PREVENTIVE MEASURES TO COVID-19 AMONG NURSES IN A SELECTED TERTIARY HOSPITAL IN SOUTH-SOUTH, NIGERIA: covid-19 Preventive measures among nurses

Background: Healthcare providers have been at the frontline of the response to the COVID-19 disease. Many of them have contracted the disease, and some of them already dead. This study assessed the knowledge, compliance with preventive measures and determined the relationship between knowledge and practice of preventive strategies to COVID-19 among nurses working in a selected hospital in South-South Nigeria. Materials and methods: A cross-sectional descriptive design guided the study. Census method guided the recruitment of all the 378 nurses in the hospital who met the study's inclusion criteria. Results: Majority (360 [95.2%]) of the nurses had good knowledge of the preventive measures to COVID-19 and 311 (82.4%) of the nurses adhere strictly to practice of the preventive strategies to COVID-19. Educational level and years of experience are determinants of knowledge about preventive measures to COVID-19 (p<0.05 respectively) while knowledge, sex, level of education, years of experience, and unit of practice are determinants of compliance to preventive measures to COVID-19 among the nurses (p<0.001). Female nurses (p=0.012), RN/RM qualified nurses (p=0.037), nurses with more than five years of experience, and those in children ward (p=0.020) and maternity complex (p=0.003)  significantly comply more to the preventive measures for COVID-19 as shown by their adjusted odds ratios.    Conclusion: As knowledge to COVID-19 preventive strategies continues to increase among health workers, there is a need to translate this knowledge into adequate practice in order to minimise the hazardous effect of the pandemic on the health workers especially nurses

Knowledge and practice of COVID-19 Preventive strategies among nurses

Background: Knowledge of COVID-19 preventive measures, in addition to appropriate practices of such measures, remains a necessity for the prevention of contracting COVID-19 by nurses. This study assessed nurses' knowledge and practice of COVID-19 preventive strategies. It also determined the influence of sociodemographic variables on the knowledge of preventive measures for COVID-19 among nurses. Materials and Methods: The study adopted a descriptive cross-sectional survey design using multi-stage sampling to recruit 344 nurses. Results: The results showed that 92% of the nurses had adequate knowledge of COVID-19 preventive measures. The practice of COVID-19 preventive measures among nurses showed that 98.80% had sufficient knowledge of the infection preventive measures. Nurses with Registered Nurse/Registered Midwife (RN/RM-AOR 12.30; CI 4.79–31.63; p = 0.001) and Bachelor of science in nursing (BScN-AOR 37.60; CI 7.644-184.95; p = 0.001) were more knowledgeable about the COVID-19 preventive compared to other nurses with higher degree qualifications. Conclusions: The nurses in the study had good knowledge of the preventive measures for COVID-19 despite not being trained as frontline staff. It is essential to transform theory into practice by ensuring that the preventive measures they know are implemented to halt the spread of the disease in the face of minimal vaccine coverage