Infection Control/Universal Precaution

Learning Objectives:
At the end of this chapter the learner will be able to:
• Describe infection prevention in health care setups
• List chain of infection
• Identify between medical asepsis and surgical asepsis
• Discuss the purpose, use and components of standard precautions.
• Maintain both medical and surgical asepsis
• Describe how to setup a client’s room for isolation, including appropriate barrier techniques.
• Identify hoe to follow specific airborne, droplet and contact precautions.

New Terminology
• Airborne precaution  •protective isolation
• Contact precaution   •standard precaution
• Droplet precaution   •transmission-based precaution
• Isolation

Nurses are involved in providing a biologically safe environment and promoting health. Microorganisms exist everywhere in the environment; in water, soil and body surfaces such as skin, intestinal tract, and other areas open to the outside.

Normal Body Defense
Individuals normally have defenses that protect the body from infection. These defenses can be categorized as non-specific and specific.

Specific Defenses
Specific defenses (immune): are directed against identifiable bacteria, viruses, fungi, or other infectious agents. Specific defenses of the body involve the immune system, which responds to foreign protein in the body (E.g. bacteria or transplanted tissues) or, in some cases even the body’s own proteins. Immunity is the specific resistance of the body to infection (pathogens or their toxins), There are two major types of immunity: active and passive. Through active immunity, the host produces its own antibodies in response to natural antigens (e.g. infection) or artificial antigens (e.g. vaccines) with passive immunity, the host
receives natural (e.g. from a nursing mother) or artificial (e.g. from an injection of immune serum) antibodies produced by another source.

Non-specific defenses protect the person against all microorganisms, regardless of prior exposure. Non-specific defenses include anatomic and physiologic barriers. In fact skin and mucus membranes are body’s first line of defense against microorganisms.