Knowledge and practice of catheter-related urinary tract infection prevention and its associated factors among nurses working at public hospitals, in the Oromia region of Ethiopia: Cross-sectional survey

Background: Catheter associated urinary tract infection is the most common nosocomial infection that is associated with serious systemic infections that imply prolonged hospital stay, financial costs for hospitalization, and increased morbidity, and mortality. There is a dearth of evidence related to nurse's knowledge and practice of catheter associated urinary tract infection prevention in Oromia, Ethiopia. Determining the nurse's knowledge and preventive practice of catheter associated urinary tract infections and their associated factors is important for developing strategies of its prevention. Objective: To assess the knowledge and practice of catheter associated urinary tract infection prevention and its associated factors among nurses working at public hospitals in the Oromia region, Ethiopia. Methods: Institution-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 422 nurses working at public hospitals in the Oromia, Ethiopia. The respondents were selected by a simple random sampling technique. A structured self-administered questionnaire was used to collect the data. Data analysis was done to describe the knowledge and practice of catheter associated urinary tract infection prevention and its associated factors. Result: Of the 422 nurses surveyed, 408 (96.7 %) returned their questionnaire. The result shows that 63.5 % of nurses had adequate knowledge while 34.6 % of them had good practice of catheter associated urinary tract infection prevention. In-service training (adjusted odds ratio: 1.862, 95 % confidence interval (1.11-3.14)), working in an intensive care unit (adjusted odds ratio: 3.148, 95 % confidence interval (1.13-8.75)) perceived availability of library (adjusted odds ratio: 2.97, 95 % confidence interval (1.78-4.96)) and access to guideline (adjusted odds ratio: 2.78, 95 % confidence interval (1.49-5.16)) were factors found to be statistically significantly associated with the nurses' knowledge. Years of experience (adjusted odds ratio: 3.63, 95 % confidence interval (1.55-8.47)), working unit (operating theatre room) (adjusted odds ratio: 2.37, 95 % confidence interval (1.08-5.19)), in-service training (adjusted odds ratio: 1.905, 95 % confidence interval (1.21-3.24)), internet access (adjusted odds ratio: 5.82, 95 % confidence interval (2.45-11.30)) and favourable attitude (adjusted odds ratio: 1.89, 95 % confidence interval (1.07-3.15) were statistically significantly associated with the nurses practice of catheter associated urinary tract infection prevention. Conclusions: More than one-third of the respondents have inadequate knowledge while less than two-thirds of the respondents have inadequate practices which suggests the presence of knowledge to practice gap in catheter associated urinary tract infection prevention. In-service training, nurse's current working unit, and the presence of a guideline were significantly associated with both the knowledge and practice of nurses toward catheter associated urinary tract infection prevention.