Assessment of Standard Nursing Practices Implementation during Blood Culture Sampling In Emergency Department

Blood culture sample is the main resource to identify the causing agent of severe infection and septicemia. It is also used for the appropriation of antibiotic regime. Unfortunately, blood culture contamination produces misperception regarding the importance of a positive result of blood culture. The knowledge of existing guidelines, education session and competency of blood culture sampling are very beneficial to reducing blood culture contamination. The study aimed to enhance nursing knowledge and practices after the blood culture sampling session and a quasi-experimental study design by an educational intervention. The sampling techniques were purposive; the sample size was 50 nurses, working in the emergency department. Its duration was three months. The rigor of study instruments were checked by content validity index 0.91 and reliability by Cronbach alpha 0.9. The study was analyzed through Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The demographic variable, knowledge and practices will be depicted in the form of frequencies and percentages. The score of an educational intervention was assessed by paired t-test. The results showed that there was an association of improved knowledge with educational intervention as the t-score was 11.79 and practices was 9.39. The p-value is significant at 0.000. Sufficient knowledge makes the nurses to be able to perform practices according to set standards and increased their responsibility to be aware of the criticality of every step taken to perform a procedure and their importance. Good practices can reduce the blood culture contamination rate and not to eliminate it.