Guest editorial by Dr Jacqui Prieto features in Journal of research in nursing

With a theme of 'Communicable diseases', Dr Jacqui Prieto's guest editorial in the February edition of the journal looks at the challenges healthcare workers face in relation to infection prevention.

Dr Prieto explains the principles of infection prevention are notoriously difficult for healthcare workers to grasp and to apply consistently in practice, with guidelines often generating more questions than they resolve. How healthcare workers make sense of the infection prevention precautions they are required to take and what else shapes their actions also needs to be better understood. A further challenge is that micro-organisms are invisible making them difficult to conceptualise. This can result in inappropriate practice be it a lapse in hygiene, an unneccessarily elaborate precaution, or both. Given the complex nature of infection prevention behaviours in healthcare, an interdisciplinary approach is required to help find new solutions.

Read about the NAMRIP funded research project that Dr Prieto is currently working on 'Mapping Microbes: Preventing the spread of infection in hospital care settings'.

The full article by Dr Prieto can be found on the Journal of research in nursing website.