Knowledge of Undergraduate Medical Students on Universal and Isolation Precautions: Indian Study

<p><strong>Objective:</strong> To assess the knowledge about universal and isolation precautions (UIP) in the undergraduate medical students (UMS) before and after educational intervention .<strong>Design: </strong>Semi-structured, self-designed, tested questionnaire before and after educational intervention were filled-up by the students. Data was entered and analyzed using the EpiInfo-version 6 statistical package and Chi-square test respectively. <strong>Setting:</strong>Medical college situated in Bangalore. <strong>Participants:</strong> 260 undergraduate para-clinical &amp; clinical medical students. <strong>Outcome Measure:</strong> Assessing i) having heard the UIP related phrases ii) knowledge of infection transmission in hospital setting iii) UIPrelated practice iv) Aptitude test to recall barrier methods/objects of UIP.</p> <p><strong>Results:</strong> 167 (64.23%) students had heard of universal precautions and 133(51.15%) responded had knowledge about Universal Precautions. 102 (39.2%) and 111 (42.7%) knew of correct hand washing procedure with respect to examining the patient and using the gloves respectively. 240 (77.8%) students said they would do recapping or manipulating used needles and 89 (58.9%) responded about disposing needle in manner that could cause needle stick injury to other health-care workers.221 (85%) students just knew less than three barrier objects of UIP' practice and most commonly known object was glove.</p> <p><strong>Conclusion; </strong>Under graduate medical student's (UMS) knowledge on UIP is less than satisfactory. Third term students lagged behind the rest of UMS [p&lt; 0.01] and so were refresher' batches as compared with the corresponding main batches in all questions relating to UIP, in both pretest and post-test [p &lt; 0.05].There is increased awareness of UIP as student goes to higher terms and with educational interventions [p &lt; 0.01]. Further large scale study on national basis has to be undertaken to assess the magnitude of ignorance and to plan awareness programme.</p>