Strategy to prevent infection from Covid-19 among security officers of tertiary care centre: A preexperimental study

J Family Med Prim Care. 2021 Sep;10(9):3257-3261. doi: 10.4103/jfmpc.jfmpc_2609_20. Epub 2021 Sep 30.

Abstract

Background: The extensive spread of Covid-19 pandemic globally became the main cause of concern for everyone, including security officers working in a health care setting.

Objective: To assess the effectiveness of instructional module for Covid-19 prevention among hospital security officers.

Methods and materials: A preexperimental study was conducted at a tertiary care hospital from North India. A total of 344 security officers were selected by the convenient sampling technique. A self-structured knowledge and practice questionnaires and instructional module were developed based on the guidelines released by World Health Organization, Centre for Disease Control and Prevention and Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Knowledge and practice were pretested, followed by the implementation of a video cum discussion instructional module for Covid-19 prevention. A posttest of knowledge and practice assessment was done after 7 days by using the same questionnaire. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to compute and analyse the data.

Results: The mean age of participants was 29.5 ± 2.25; mos participants (75%) were male security officers. Knowledge and practice scores improved after the implementation of instructional module as mean scores of pretest to mean posttest scores had shown a significant difference (P = 0.00). In practice, instructional module was significantly effective, except for touching hair again and again, as it could be a source of covid-19 infection.

Conclusion: This study finding highlights the significance of training security officers about the prevention of Covid-19.

Keywords: Covid-19; hand hygiene; health care personnel; health education; masks; pandemics; social distance.