Impact of an educational intervention on standard precautions during the COVID-19 pandemic

Another important aspect to highlight is that the low knowledge of SPs may also be related to the fact that most nurses do not receive training at the beginning of their work activities in healthcare institutions'61. [...]training has a significant and effective influence on the attitude and knowledge of professionals in performing their work activities safely, increasing awareness of safety protocols'1'71. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the growing global spread of the virus, significant changes have been observed in the production and distribution capacity of PPEs, resulting in incompatibility in the availability of some materials and compromising compliance with use'81.This atypical scenario required regulatory health agencies to issue new recommendations, such as surgical masks should be snugly secured on the face, eye protection should be used for all patient care encounters, and suspected or confirmed COVID-19 cases should use a respirator such as an N95 or PFF2 with eye protection, even when there is no exposure to aerosols, as recommended by the CDC (9'10). Type of study Quasi-experimental research, with a before-and-after design of a single group guided by the CONSORT tool.The essential characteristic of this investigation is that the researchers control and manipulate the conditions they are interested in, meaning they cause a change in the value of an independent variable and observe the effect of that change on another dependent variable'111. Study location The study was conducted in the city ofTrěs Lagoas, in the east of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil, in a hospital that currently serves as a referencefor 10 municipalities in the state.The hospital has 166 existing beds, 90% of which are dedicated to public and free care through the Brazilian Unified Health System (SUS).The estimated population of the municipality is 123,281 inhabitants.