A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY ON PREVALENCE AND FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH BODY FLUIDS EXPOSURE AMONG NURSING STUDENTS OF BISHOP STUART UNIVERSITY.

Abstract

Background: Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence and factors associated with body fluid exposure among nursing students. Method: A cross-sectional study design that employed a quantitative method of data collection was used. This design took a short time and no intervention was done after data collection. A total of 107 participants were selected by simple random sampling technique and data obtained was analyzed by SPSS version 20. Results: One hundred eight nursing students consented to participate in the study and all completed questionnaires making it 100% response. The majority of the respondents (90.7%) had ever been exposed to body fluids with 55.1% having been exposed to blood .49.0% of the respondents were exposed to body fluids over 3 times during their clinical practicum. The overall findings from the study revealed a significant relationship between the level of education, availability and use of PPEs, annual IPC training, availability of PPEs, and number of patients with exposure body among nursing students. Conclusion: The study highlighted a large percentage (90.7%) of the nursing students to have been exposed to body fluids with most of them having been exposed to blood and had more than 3 exposures to body fluids during their clinical practice. Recommendation: Institutional administrators should also ensure that students are provided with support supervision and continuous medical education to empower them on proper waste disposal and infectious disease control/management.