Knowledge and Attitudes of Nurses about Urinary Catheter and Prevention of Catheter-Associated Infections

Aim: This study was undertaken to explore knowledge and attitudes of nurses about urinary catheter and prevention of catheter-associated infections. Methods: The population of this descriptive study was composed of nurses who worked at a training and research hospital in a province. The study utilized no sampling method, and 131 nurses who volunteered to join the study and were contacted were recruited for the study. The data of the study were collected using descriptive questionnaire that addressed at nurses’ sociodemographic characteristics and Catheter-Associated Urinary Tract Infections (CAUTI) between April and May 2019. In the analysis of the data; numbers, percentages, means, Mann Whitney-U test and Kruskall Wallis test were used. Results: 35.1% of the nurses were aged ≥35 years, 87.0% of them were female and 60.3% of them had undergraduate degrees. 24.4% of the participating nurses had a work-length of 6-10 years and 53.4% of them received training about catheterassociated urinary system infections. It was identified that nurses had an average score of 62.18±7.11. It was identified that such variables as age, sex, educational status, work-length did not affect nurses’ urinary catheter and catheter-associated infections. Conclusion:It was found that more than half of the participant nurses received training about catheter-associated urinary system infections and showed a high level of knowledge and attitudes about urinary catheter and prevention of catheterassociated infections. It may be recommended that the number of on-job trainings about preventing catheter-associated infections be elevated and continued.