Intern-Nursing Students’ Knowledge of Vascular Catheter-Associated Infections and Its Associated Factors: A Cross-Sectional Survey in China

Jiaji Hu,1,2,&ast; Binbin Xu,3,&ast; Nian Yao,1,2 Sha Peng,1,2 Ran Xu,1,2 Guiyuan Ma,1,2 Jinghui Zhang1,2,4 1Teaching and Research Section of Clinical Nursing, Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Changsha, 410008, People’s Republic of China; 2Xiangya School of Nursing, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan Province, 410000, People’s Republic of China; 3School of Nursing, Hunan University of Chinese Medicine, Changsha, Hunan Province, 410000, People’s Republic of China; 4National Clinical Research Center for Geriatric Disorders, Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Changsha, 410008, People’s Republic of China&ast;These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Jinghui Zhang, Teaching and Research Section of Clinical Nursing, Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, No. 87 Xiangya Road, Kaifu District, Changsha, 410008, People’s Republic of China, Tel +86 158 7403 2339, Email 401212@csu.edu.cnBackground: Medical personnel contact with the patient closely, and their knowledge of vascular catheter-associated infections (VCAIs) is closely related to the prevention of VCAIs. Researchers mainly pay attention to the VCAIs knowledge of doctors and nurses but rarely pay attention to the nursing students in the hospital internship stage.Purpose: To investigate the current situation of knowledge of intern-nursing students in VCAIs, and analyze its influencing factors.Patients and Methods: 843 intern-nursing students were selected from 10 hospitals in five regions of eastern, western, southern, northern, and central China from June 26 to July 31, 2023, using a two-stage random sampling method. A self-designed questionnaire with good reliability and validity was used to investigate their knowledge of VCAIs, and t-test, multiple linear regression analysis, and Welch t-test were used to analyze the collected data by using SPSS Statistics 26.0 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY).Results: Intern nursing students’ mean score of VCAIs knowledge was 48.66 (SD=15.77), with a score below 60 (unqualified) accounting for 75.4%, a score of 60– 79 (qualified) accounting for 19.7%, a score of 80– 89 (good) accounting for 3.6%, and a score of above 90 accounting for 1.3%. Students who attended VCAIs training three or more times had higher scores than those who did not attend training (B: 4.706, p=0.001), knowledge scores of students with a bachelor’s degree or above were higher than those with junior college degree or below (B: 8.479, p< 0.001), students who interned in tertiary hospitals had higher scores than those practicing in secondary hospitals (B:12.381, p< 0.001) and scores of students in hospital training were significantly higher than study independently (B:4.116, p=0.007).Conclusion: Intern-nursing students have a relatively low level of knowledge about VCAIs. It is recommended to strengthen clinical systematic and standardized training, improve the knowledge mastery level of intern-nursing students, and enhance their ability to handle VCAIs.Keywords: catheter-related bloodstream infections, intern-nursing students, knowledge, vascular catheter-associated infections