The compliance of emergency healthcare personnel with isolation precautions during the COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-sectional questionnaire study

Abstract

Objectives: Isolation precautions are very important for emergency personnel faced with this high risk. This is cross-sectional study carried out to determine the compliance of emergency healthcare personnel with isolation precautions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: The study was carried out in the Emergency Services department of Erzurum Atatürk University and Erzurum Regional Training and Research Hospital from May 2020 to June 2020. The study population comprised 184 healthcare professionals working in emergency services, and the sample comprised 138 healthcare professionals who agreed to participate in the study. Data were collected using the “Healthcare Professionals Sociodemographic Form” and the “Compliance with Isolation Precautions Scale”. Percentage distribution, t test, variance analysis (ANOVA), Mann–Whitney U test and Kruskal–Wallis test were used to analyse the data. Permission to conduct the study was obtained from the ethics committee and the Ministry of Health. Results: Of the participants, 58.7% were male, 37.7% had worked for 1-5 years, 31.2% were nurses and the mean age was 30.78 ± 7.17. Of the participants, 86.2% wanted to receive training on isolation precautions, 87% knew the type of isolation practiced, 81.2% were able to identify suspected patients and 84.1% knew suspected patients were put into isolation. The emergency healthcare personnel's mean score on the isolation precautions compliance scale was determined as 67.63 ± 4.64. Conclusion: It was concluded that the emergency healthcare personnel had high levels of knowledge about the COVID-19 pandemic; however, they had an average level of compliance with isolation precautions.