Personnel engaging in disinfection in nursing institutions for the aged in Shanghai and their demand investigation

OBJECTIVE To explore the essential features of the disinfection personnel in nursing institutions for the aged in Shanghai and the demands for their posts so as to provide bases for boosting the capabilities of disinfection and infection control in the nursing institutions for the aged. METHODS A scale involving the contents such as the basic information and demands for the posts was designed by stratified randomized cluster sampling method, and the survey was conducted for the disinfection personnel from all of the nursing institutions for the aged in 6 administrative districts of Shanghai. The data were analyzed by means of Chi-square test, independent sample t-test and univariate variance analysis. RESULTS Totally 900 valid questionnaires were recycled, with the valid rate 96.26%. The female personnel of disinfection was dominant among the personnel in the nursing institutions for the aged in Shanghai, most of them were aged no less than 41 years old and were with the education background of junior high school or less, half of them were engaged in nursing care work for the aged for no less than 5 years, the proportion of the personnel who have worked in the current institution for no less than 5 years was highest, and the nursing post was the predominant post. There were significant differences in the age, education level, years of working in the nursing post, and duration of employment in the current institution among the disinfection personnel with different posts from different nature of nursing institutions and different administrative districts of Shanghai(P＜0.05). The personnel who have engaged in the aged people nursing for no less than 5 years and have worked in the current institutions for no less than 5 years accounted for 37.22%. The average total demand score across four dimensions was (64.85 ± 17.19) points among the disinfection personnel in the whole city, and there was significant difference in the total demand among the different age groups of disinfection personnel(P＜0.05). CONCLUSIONS The disinfection personnel in the aged nursing institutions of Shanghai are characterized by the low educational level, old age, high mobility, and insufficient professional competence in disinfection and infection control. There is an urgent need to strengthen the education of professional awareness and carry out the systemic training so as to reduce the incidence of infectious diseases and risk of cluster epidemic in the key institutions.