Caring for HIV/AIDS patients and/or drug users requires health care workers (HCWs) to have good knowledge of the issues. Cultural differences in HCWs, combined with professional ethics and personal beliefs, could also result in conflicting attitudes, leading to difficulties related to looking after people affected by HIV/AIDS or drug users. A cross-sectional study was carried out to assess the ...

The objective of the present study was to assess HIV-related knowledge, attitudes, and practice of health care workers (HCWs) in Montenegro. A cross-sectional study was conducted in the University Clinical Centre of Montenegro in Podgorica. A self-administered anonymous questionnaire was used for data collecting. Out of 526 HCWs, 422 were included in the survey and response rate was 80%. An ins...

OBJECTIVE To construct a single estimate of the number of percutaneous injuries sustained annually by healthcare workers (HCWs) in the United States. DESIGN Statistical analysis. METHODS We combined data collected in 1997 and 1998 at 15 National Surveillance System for Health Care Workers (NaSH) hospitals and 45 Exposure Prevention Information Network (EPINet) hospitals. The combined data, ...

BACKGROUND Western accredited medical universities can offer graduate-level academic courses to health care workers (HCWs) in resource-limited settings through the Internet. It is not known whether HCWs are interested in these online courses, whether they can perform as well as matriculated students, or whether such courses are educationally or practically relevant. METHODS AND FINDINGS In 20...

BACKGROUND There is a higher neonatal mortality rate while the adherence to the existing guidelines is rarely studied in Tanzania. AIM The aim of this study is to assess the performance of health workers for neonatal health-care. MATERIALS AND METHODS Settings - Peripheral health facilities (regional referral, district hospitals and health centers) and a tertiary referral hospital of Kilima...

BACKGROUND Not all health care workers (HCWs) are at the same risk for tuberculin skin test (TST) conversion, indicating latent tuberculosis (TB) infection. OBJECTIVE To identify risk factors for TST conversion among HCWs. METHODS A retrospective cohort study conducted at a tertiary university medical centre included every HCW who had had a negative two-step TST at work entry and at least o...

Hand hygiene has been recognized as the most important means of preventing the transmission of infection, and great emphasis has been placed on ways to improve hand hygiene compliance by health care workers (HCWs). Despite increasing evidence that patients' flora and the hospital environment are the primary source of many infections, little effort has been directed toward involving patients in ...

A prospective study to evaluate immune status against diphtheria and immunologic response after tetanus-diphtheria (Td) booster vaccination was conducted in 250 Thai health care workers (HCWs). A protective antibody was found in 89.2% of the HCWs (95% confidence interval [CI], 83.3%-91.5%) before receipt of the Td booster vaccination, compared with 97.2% (95% CI, 95.1%-99.3%) after receipt of t...

We describe the nosocomial transmission of group A Streptococcus species (GAS) from a single source patient to 24 health care workers (HCWs). DNA typing revealed that all of the isolates were identical to that of the source patient. The isolates were M type 1, positive for production of nicotine adenine dinucleotidase, and negative for opacity factor, all of which are factors reported to have a...

BACKGROUND To assess the knowledge, the attitudes, and the behaviour towards influenza A/H1N1 and the vaccination among health-care workers (HCWs). METHODS A sample of HCWs was selected from a random sample of non-teaching public hospitals, located in the cities of Naples and Avellino (Italy), received a self-administered anonymous questionnaire including questions about socio-demographic cha...