The impact of educational interventions in improving safety practices of healthcare workers: A systematic review

• Author Details:   
• Garba Jamiu Olalekan ^*
• Nahlah Abduljaleel Alsaidi

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Background: Healthcare workers encounter a variety of occupational hazards that predispose them to accidents and are at a high risk of exposure to bloodborne infection while carrying out their duties. The prevalence of exposures to highly infectious agents has further intensified the need to take occupational exposures to infections seriously in healthcare. And healthcare workers play pivotal in the prevention and control this infection. Therefore, it is important to educate and encourage health workers to practice safety precautions in healthcare settings, and make safety a top priority. Due to the importance of education in ensuring adequate preventive measures are taken in healthcare settings.

Objectives: Therefore, this paper undertakes a systematic review of the literature to “assess the impact of educational interventions in improving the safety practices” of healthcare workers.

Materials and Methods: Research databases such as PubMed, Google Scholar, Scopus, and Science Direct were systematically searched to obtain relevant literature published in the past few years until 2024. The selection criteria were based on the study objectives, and the quality of the studies reviewed were assed based of study design by a quality appraisal tool. Data were extracted using Microsoft Excel and subsequently analyzed with STATA (version 11).

Results: Out of 445 articles initially retrieved, 7 studies met the inclusion criteria and were included into the review. Overall, educational interventions generally had a positive impact on improving safety practices. Post-educational intervention assessments showed significant improvements in compliance with safety precautions in areas such as needle recapping, hand hygiene, wearing of gloves and PPE, management of sharps and needles, Disinfection and cleaning practices, and safe waste disposal. Despite improvements, challenges remained, such as the continued low practice of wearing gowns.

Conclusion: Educational interventions play a significant role in enhancing the practice of safety precautions among health workers and are necessary to protect HCWs from exposure to worksite hazards and in preventing blood-borne pathogen infections.