Abstract

  A study was conducted in Kampala International University- Teaching Hospital accident and emergency department between July 2013 to October 2013 to assess  the awareness and practises of infection prevention amongst health care workers at their work place. The  specific objectives of this study were to assess the practices of the staff in emergency rooms on the standard protocols observed in infections prevention, to identify the roles played by the administration in infection control in the  emergency room, to identify the challenges that staff undergo during infection control in accident and emergency department and to establish the availability and use of Post Exposure Prophylaxsis (PEP) in HIV infection prevention among staff.  The study found out that (77.8%), of the respondents in the department used personal protective equipments, only (21) 46% of respondents had access to infection control policy guidelines available in their department, the most common challenge of infection control was the  dysfunctional infection control committee (36.1%), and  that superficial injuries with body fluid was   the most common emergency(45.5%) and 75% of those who suffered from them had access to Post Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP) for HIV.  Evidence gathered from this study suggests that the infection control practices in Kampala International University Teaching Hospital accident and emergency department were relatively adequate given that each and every member of staff was consciously cautious about his or her safety when attending to patients. The roles of hospital administration in policy formulation and implementations were suboptimal, the lack of supervision of infection control was high and that Post Exposure Prophylaxis for HIV was being implemented according to the national guidelines to the victims of occupational exposure at the work place including needle stick injuries and accidental exposure to potentially infectious waste.  And then it recommended that healthcare workers should be provided with adequate relevant personal protection gear, thorough supervision and continuing medical education, staff  should be encouraged to make use of the personal protection gear and practises such as proper hand washing before and after attending to patients, colour coded bins should be provided for proper waste disposal, the administration should update infection control policies, avail them to departments and integrate the implementations of these policies to environmental engineering, promote an effective infection control committee and sub committees in each department and  there is therefore need for more sensitization of health workers on infection prevention and post exposure prophylaxis for HIV for health workers