The nurses' experience of infection control in their practice

Infection control is an integral part of nurses' daily work. The experience of nurses shows the importance of infection control and reflects the strong and weak points of infection control in patient care. The aim is to explore the nurses' experience of infection control in their practice.  The study results were acquired by qualitative study method: structured interview (n=7), where a structured interview plan with open questions, designed and approved by the author was used. The interview with nurses was realized in a separate room, outside the person’s working hours and took on average 35 minutes. It was found that there are many factors that affect work of nurses, such as social, material, psychologically and organizational. All interviewed nurses confirmed that infection control had improved over time. According to the nurses’ opinion, the most common reasons why nurses followed the rules of the infection control were responsibility, safety of patients and nurses and quality patient care. In interviews the nurses reflected that sometimes were felt angry, dislike and resistance during infection control. As well as nurses reported about the lack of knowledge and understanding on the significance of the infection control, an increased workload, lack of effective collaboration with professionals of infection control, on the other side there was new patient care documentation and chance sharing in nurses’ experience and knowledge in social networks for professionals. The study shows that strong points of infection control in nurses’ experience are new documentation in patient care and communication in social networks with professionals.  There are also weak points of infection control such as an increased workload, lack of effective collaboration with professionals of infection control, lack of awareness of infection control efficiency and practical training of young colleagues.