Knowledge, Attitude and Practices of the Standard Precautions among the Laboratory Technicians in a Tertiary Care Hospital at New Delhi

Healthcare Workers are always at high risk of infection since they deal with the infectious patients and materials in the hospital. The knowledge about the acquired infections and diseases as an occupational hazard, preventive methods and the improvisation of such knowledge by following standard precautions is not known and not followed by significant number of laboratory technicians. Objectives: To determine the awareness and practices of standard precautions among the laboratory technicians of a tertiary care hospital at New Delhi. Methodology: The present study is a hospital-based cross-sectional study. A semi-structured, selfadministered bilingual questionnaire, based on WHO standard precautions and ICMR good lab practices, was used to assess the knowledge, attitude and practices of standard precautions among laboratory technicians of biochemistry, pathology, microbiology, DOTS and hematology laboratories of a tertiary care hospital. Ethical certificate for the study was been obtained from the Institute Ethics Committee of VMMC and Safdarjung Hospital. Result: 84 forms were administered to study samples. 81 forms (96.4%) were filled and returned. 17.28% (14) of the participants had experienced needle pricks at some time in the past. 90% of the study participants were aware about the standard precautions. Majority (98.76%) of them did not know about the biosafety level of their laboratories and all of them reported absence of accident register. Majority (69.1%) of them were somewhat knowledgeable (>75% of the total score). There was no significant difference in the knowledge level of the participants based on their sex (p-0.296), age groups (p-0.083) or the departments (p-0.324). Conclusion: The study concluded that there was lack of knowledge among technicians for their safety and health which demands CME program, refresher trainings, re-orientation classes and hands-on-training for reinforcements on standard precautions, regularly.