Knowledge and practices regarding tuberculosis infection control among nurses in Ibadan, South-West Nigeria: a cross-sectional study

Background: Nurses are particularly vulnerable to nosocomial tuberculosis (TB) infection because, being in the frontline of patient care, they are frequently exposed to patients with infectious TB disease. Although cost-effective measures are available for TB infection control (TBIC), they are often poorly implemented. Knowledge of TBIC is known to positively influence the practice of the measures. There is however limited data on the knowledge and practice of TBIC among nurses in Nigeria. This study was aimed at determining the levels of TBIC-related knowledge and practices of nurses in Ibadan, and associated socio-demographic factors. Methods: This cross-sectional study utilized a self-administered questionnaire to collect data from 200 nurses in two secondary health facilities, in May 2014. STATA version 13 was used to analyze data: mean knowledge and practice scores of the nurses and logistic regression to explore their association with socio-demographic factors. Results: The respondents had mean knowledge and practice scores of 68.2% and 79.9% respectively. Using cut-off points of 80% and 100% for good knowledge and practice scores respectively, small proportions of the nurses had good scores- knowledge (10.5%) and practice (6%). Knowledge was found not to be significantly associated with the socio-demographic factors. Work experience was the only factor that was significantly associated with practice, with the more experienced nurses (>18 years of experience) having lesser odds of obtaining good practice scores (OR 0.25, 95%CI 0.06-0.94). Also, there was no significant association between knowledge and practice scores. No structured TBIC training had been conducted at this time. Conclusions: The study revealed that small proportions of the nurses had good knowledge and practice scores. The findings from this study will be useful for the planning of interventions to improve TBIC among nurses and other healthcare workers, and to benchmark monitoring and evaluation of the interventions. It is recommended that the nurses should be trained on TBIC to equip them with necessary knowledge and skills. This, together with appropriate TBIC policy directives, availability of TBIC equipment/supplies and facility architectural remodeling will contribute to optimal implementation of TB preventive measures.