Honors Program

Honors in Nursing

Date of Award

5-2015

Thesis Professor(s)

Kimberly Sell

Thesis Professor Department

Nursing

Thesis Reader(s)

Patricia Moore, Daniel Hedden

Abstract

Transmissions based precautions are measures implemented in various clinical health care settings as a means to prevent the transmission of infectious diseases and decrease instances of healthcare acquired infections (HAI). HAI’s result in increased cost to hospitals, longer hospitalization for patients, increased patient suffering, and fatal patient outcomes. While staff member adherence to transmissions based precautions are mandated through various organizations and hospital policies, a review of literature indicates little research has been conducted regarding visitor compliance with transmission-based precautions. The potential implications in healthcare from visitor non-adherence acquired infections are unknown; revealing a gap in literature and supporting the need for further research to describe the phenomenon. Through utilization of a descriptive online survey instrument, the purpose of this descriptive study is to gain insight into why nurses believe visitors may or may not be compliant with transmission-based precautions. To collect the data, an online descriptive survey instrument was developed and distributed via email to all graduate students’ enrolled East Tennessee State University’s College of Nursing. Only ten participants met the eligibility requirements to participate in this study. Data was analyzed though a predictive analytics software and grouping responses into themes. Responses suggest that nurses feel visitors are not complying with transmission-based precautions because of a lack in education, not perceiving the infection as a threat, prior exposure to loved one at home, and inconvenience.

Document Type

Honors Thesis - Open Access

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

Copyright

Copyright by the authors.

Included in

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