Good Practices For Infection Prevention and Control at a Psychiatric Hospital in Brazil

Abstract

This exploratory cross-sectional study aims to investigate good practice for preventing and controlling infections in a psychiatric hospital and for limiting potential exposure to biohazards for nursing professionals at this hospital located in the State of Sao Paulo, Brazil. The researchers directly and systematically observed 830 nursing procedures, 40.6% of which presented a moderate to high risk of biohazard exposure. Results indicate very low adherence to hand hygiene (1.2% before procedures, 2.9% after procedures), inappropriate use of gloves, and other instances of noncompliance to the standards of good practice for preventing and controlling infection, such as a lack of concurrent/terminal cleaning of dirty beds (132 instances) and careless manipulation of sharp devices (34 instances).