Practices of Nurses on Specimen Collection for Bacteriological Cultures (Blood, Urine and Wound Swabs) at A Tertiary Care Hospital in Southern Province of Srilanka

Abstract

Background: Culture tests perform a major role in the diagnosis and treatment of the infective diseases. The practices of nurses and health care staff have a greater impact on proper culture sample collection in order to avoid contamination, reduce errors and harmful events. Objectives: To assess practices of nurses on specimen collection for bacteriological cultures. Methodology: A descriptive cross sectional study was carried out involving 73 nurses working in medical, surgical and paediatric wards and special care units at Teaching Hospital Karapitiya. Blood, urine (from catheterized and non-catheterized patients) and wound swab collection procedures were observed and assessed in 20, 20, 20 and 13 nurses respectively using check lists. Data were analysed using SPSS version 20. Results and conclusions: Just above 1/3 of (40%) participants followed 10 or more steps (out of 14 steps) correctly in the blood culture collection procedure. Regarding urine culture collection 95% (n= 19) nurses instructed patients to obtain mid stream sample and all the nurses were able to select the correct container. When collecting catheter urine samples 75% (n=15) followed more than 6 out of 8 steps correctly and 95% (n=19) of the time sterile gloves were used. About 52% (n=7) participants removed surgical exudate with sterile normal saline and 92.3% (n=12) participants practiced surgical hand washing before collecting wound swabs for culture. In overall, the practices of nurses on specimen collection for bacteriological cultures are good. There are some aspects still to be improved.