Assessment of infection control knowledge, attitude and practice among healthcare workers during the Hajj period of the Islamic year 1423 (2003)

We assessed hospital infection control knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) of healthcare workers (HCWs) during the Hajj season of the Islamic y 1423 (2003). A self-administered structured questionnaire was used to collect the data. A total of 392 HCWs was studied, of whom 215 (54.8%) were nurses and 177 (45.2%) were doctors. 315 (80.4%) HCWs worked in hospitals, whereas 77 (19.6%) worked in primary healthcare centres. Of the 392 HCWs, 164 (41.8%) were from Makkah, and the remaining 228 (58.2%) were recruited from other regions in Saudi Arabia. A good proportion (81.8%) of HCWs correctly answered at least 5 of the 11 knowledge statements. However, obvious deficiency of knowledge appeared concerning other important hospital infection control measures. A smaller proportion (61.9%) of HCWs achieved a score of at least 4 out of 7 for attitude statements with unacceptable attitude for the remaining 3 areas. Response to questions concerning practice showed that nurses tended to be better than doctors (p-value=0.204), but both groups reported variable compliance to hospital infection control practices in terms of strict or near-strict adherence. In conclusion, training of HCWs is needed to improve KAP in infection control.