OBJECTIVES: To assess nurses' level of knowledge, attitude and perceived practice regarding CAUTI and its preventive measures.
METHODS: A cross-sectional design was adopted, and a self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data. Nurses from the medical and surgical inpatient wards of a tertiary teaching hospital in Malaysia were recruited in two stages using the stratified and simple random sampling methods. A total of 301 nurses participated. Descriptive analysis, an independent t test, ANOVA and hierarchical multiple regression were employed to analyse the data using SPSS software version 25. In addition, a STROBE checklist was used to report the results of this study.
RESULTS: Nurses were found to have good knowledge, a positive attitude and good perceived practice regarding CAUTI prevention. Nurses aged above 30 and who had more than ten years of experience reported higher knowledge levels. Knowledge was found to be positively correlated with attitude and perceived practice; however, attitude explained a higher variance in perceived practice of CAUTI prevention compared with knowledge.
CONCLUSION: Attitude was found to have a higher significant influence on perceived practice in this study. Educators need to emphasise the inculcation of a positive attitude among nurses rather than just knowledge for CAUTI prevention. Since this study assessed perceived practice, examining nurses' actual practice and its impact on patient outcomes is recommended in future studies.