Nurses' knowledge, perceived practice, and associated factors towards sterile techniques in major operation rooms at public hospitals in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2022: a cross-sectional study

A sterile technique is a standard to reduce microorganism transmission during surgery. Gaps in knowledge and practice in sterile techniques by nurses are common causes of surgical site infections for surgical patients. Even though surgical site infection is a global problem due to lack of knowledge and practice, almost no study has been done in Ethiopia regarding nurses' knowledge and practice of sterile techniques in the operating room. Therefore, this study aimed to assess nurses' knowledge, practice, and associated factors of sterile techniques in Addis Ababa public hospitals, Ethiopia. An institutional-based cross-sectional study was conducted on 423 nurses who were working in sixty-six operation rooms at seven public hospitals in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from May 11 to June 26/2022. A simple random sampling method was employed to select study participants. A pre-tested, self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data. Data were entered by Epi-data version 4.6 and analyzed by SPSS version 25. Descriptive statistics were presented by text, table, and figure. Multivariable analysis was used to identify the association between the dependent variable and independent variables. Variables with a P-value