Nurses' Knowledge of Evidence-Based Guidelines for the Prevention of Surgical Site Infection

Background: Prevention of surgical site infection (SSI) is an important responsibility for nurses. Knowledge of the related evidence-based recommendations is necessary to provide high-quality nursing care. Aim: Development of an evaluation tool and subsequent evaluation of intensive care unit (ICU) nurses' knowledge of the SSI prevention guideline to identify their specific educational needs, as part of a needs analysis preceding the development of an e-learning module on infection prevention. Methods: We developed a multiple-choice knowledge test concerning evidence-based SSI prevention. After expert assessment of its face and content validity, the test was used in a survey among 809 ICU nurses. Demographics included were gender, ICU experience, number of ICU beds, and whether respondents had obtained a specialized ICU qualification. Based on the test results, an item analysis was performed. Results: Face and content validity were achieved for 9 out of 10 items of the questionnaire. From the survey, we collected 650 questionnaires (response rate 80.3%). The item analysis revealed overall good results with values for item difficulty ranging from 0.1 to 0.5 for eight questions, while one question had a value of 0.02; discriminative values ranging from 0.27 to 0.53 and values for the quality of the response alternatives between 0.1 and 0.7. Overall, these results demonstrate the questionnaire's reliability. The nurses' mean score on the knowledge test was 29%. Males were shown to have better scores. Conclusions: Opportunities exist to improve ICU nurses' knowledge about SSI prevention recommendations. Current guidelines should support their ongoing training and education.