Study on Healthcare Associated Infections

Healthcare Associated Infections: Critical Analysis

The prevention and control of healthcare associated infections is an issue that has attracted considerable attention across the globe given the increase of healthcare associated infections. Despite the development and use of several strategies and measures to lessen the burdens caused by healthcare associated infections, the practices of healthcare professionals are largely suboptimal while the infections persist. As a result, the prevention and control of these infections has attracted considerable concern, which has resulted in several studies on the practices and behaviors of healthcare practitioners. Carole Jackson, Karen Lowton and Peter Griffiths have conducted a research on nurses' prevention behaviors to control healthcare associated infections. The qualitative study utilizes vignettes created from nurses' reports of infection prevention behaviors and practices.

Problem Statement

Healthcare associated infections can be described as infections that emerge from medical interventions like clinical or surgical processes or from contact with a healthcare environment and setting ("Prevention and Control of Healthcare-Associated Infections," 2011). Since they cover a broad series of infections, healthcare associated infections have emerged as significant health concerns because they pose a severe risk to staff, patients, and visitors. The risk of these infections is attributed to the significant morbidity they cause to the infected and contribute to increased healthcare costs. Therefore, the prevention and control of these infections is a major issue and priority for healthcare stakeholders.

While the various stakeholders acknowledge the need for preventing and controlling these infections, the strategies and initiatives adopted by healthcare professionals and practitioners have largely been suboptimal. Numerous studies that have been conducted on the issue have been centered on forecasting infection prevention behaviors and issues linked to compliance with guidelines. However, there is lack of researches that are geared towards understanding and explaining daily infection behaviors of these practitioners despite the valuable insight from the numerous studies. The lack of such information and studies is the gap in knowledge, which is the research problem examined in this study. The author has established the significance of the study through stating the impact of these infections on the patients, hospital staff, and visitors as well as on the overall healthcare costs. Moreover, the authors recognize that the root cause of unsuitable behavior and non-compliance has not been evaluated. The reader should care about this research on the premise that it provides valuable information regarding nurses' infection prevention behaviors with regards to seeming ineffectiveness of the various strategies.

Purpose and Research Questions

The purpose of the study is to provide explanations regarding nurses' infection prevention behavior relating to prevention and control of healthcare associated infections. The author seeks to accomplish this through presenting one of the three themes detected in a wider study that seeks to enhance understanding regarding nurses' infection prevention behaviors within acute healthcare settings. In this case, the researchers elicit nurses' accounts or reports of observed behaviors to prevent and control these infections (Jackson, Lowton & Griffiths, 2013).

In order to achieve the purpose of the study, the researchers have provided several answers in the study, which can be used to infer the research questions. This essentially means that the authors have not explicitly offered the research questions. The lack of explicit research question is attributed to the fact that the research is an interpretative study that primarily involves evaluating data and presenting a greater picture of the phenomenon based on the researchers' interpretations. Generally, this approach involves data analysis and interpretation that contributes to the creation of a strong insightful text in relation to the phenomenon (Burns & Grove, 2011). The research questions that the study was designed to answer include

Is the ineffectiveness of prevention and control strategies brought by nurses' infection prevention behaviors?

Is current policy and guidance based on examination of the root cause of unsuitable behavior and non-compliance?

Are there nurses' infection behaviors that take place in daily practice and remain unexplained?

Will improvement of nurses' behaviors enhance infection prevention?

The purpose and research questions are related to the research problem since they seek to provide valuable insights on the link between preventing/controlling healthcare associated infections and nurses' infection behaviors. The qualitative methods used were suitable to answer the research questions since the authors wanted to evaluate data and develop a strong, insightful picture of the phenomenon being described.

Literature Review

The interpretative approach of the study required the analysis of existing literature and studies in order to develop an insightful picture of the phenomenon being described. As a result, the authors cited relevant quantitative and qualitative studies to the research issue. The authors also included statistics from reports and surveys from relevant stakeholders as well as books that focus on analyzing the issue. With regards to whether the references were current, the researchers included a considerable number of studies that older than the 5-year limit that is usually used for quantitative studies. The inclusion of these older references was attributed to the fact that they contained information and statistics that were relevant to the qualitative study on nurses' infection prevention behaviors towards preventing/controlling healthcare associated infections. The use of various studies, reports, and books provided adequate information that was used to develop a logical argument. The sufficiency of the literature is evident in their significance in the data analysis processes and provision of information relating to the definition of these infections as well as strategies and initiatives for preventing and controlling them.

Following the evaluation of data and the development of an insightful picture on the phenomenon, the authors indicate weaknesses or limitations of the available studies. In this case, the researchers state that available studies primarily focus on forecasting infection prevention behaviors and issues linked to guideline compliance. Therefore, the available studies do not provide valuable insight regarding effecting behavior change among key actors to enhance the prevention and control of these infections.