Association between Hospital Nurses’ Perception of Patient Safety Management and Standard Precaution Adherence: A Cross-Sectional Study

Lim, Ji-Hye; Ahn, Jung-Won; Son, Youn-Jung

Next, the standard precaution adherence items with the two lowest adherence rates were (1) wearing personal protection equipment (such as a gown or apron), with an adherence rate of 17.9%, and (2) wearing a surgical mask alone or in combination with goggles, a face shield, and an apron, with a adherence rate of 32.2%. This finding was similar to the aforementioned study, which showed that Brazilian and Hong Kong nurses had low adherence rates for wearing personal protection equipment [28] . Further, our result supported some Korean studies which surveyed Korean hospital nurses [29, 30] , implying that, regardless of nurses' cultural backgrounds, specialized training or education regarding the wearing of personal protective equipment must be well-executed. Suh and Oh [15] stated that the use of personal protective equipment hinders the formation of a therapeutic relationship with patients and decreases job efficiency due to the time consumed in taking it on it and off as well as the discomfort of wearing it. There were also physical difficulties, such as insufficient equipment and accessibility [1, 29] .