Compliance of standard precautions for prevention of AIDS in maternity care units

Abstract

Introduction: AIDS was a problem of the industrial countries at first, but today it is a universal one. Health care workers especially midwives and other workers in maternity care units are at high risk and their compliance with standard precautions is important. This research was carried out to investigate the quality of compliance with these precautions in maternity care unites.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional descriptive analytic survey carried out on 66 midwives and 16 helper staffs in governmental maternity care units of Kerman and Rafsanjan. The data were gathered with two checklists. All midwives and helper staffs were involved in this research. SPSS software was used for data analysis.

Results: The findings showed that 80.3% of midwives were at average level of practice, 16.7% were poor and 3% were good. Also, 75% of helper staffs were at poor level of practice, 25% were average or not having good practice. Equipments were appropriate for both groups.

Conclusion: The midwives and helper staffs had appropriate equipments but only 3% of midwives had good practice while helper staffs didn't have any good practice. Probably additional factors such as insufficient information and motivation, and crowded ward affected their practice. In order to improve quality of practice, barriers should be determined and removed.

Key words: AIDS, standard precautions, prevention, maternity care units, midwives.