Background: Infection is one of the major problems in the operating rooms. Many
studies showed that nurses are dangerously exposed to many hazards; such as needle stick and
sharps injuries with high incidence in the operating room due to many factors such as lack of
experience, cross infection, and work overload. Nurses need more attention for ensuring
effective compliance with universal precautions. Aim of study: Assess nurses' knowledge and
practice about universal precautions, plan and implement health education program for nurses
about universal precautions and evaluate the impact of health education on nurses' knowledge
and practice about universal precautions. Setting: emergency hospital (ambulatory surgery
unit), and new surgery hospital. Study sample: consists of 70 nurses, 30 nurses from the
operating rooms in the emergency hospital and 40 nurses from operating rooms in the new
surgery hospital. A quasi – experimental design was used in this study. Tools: included
questionnaire sheet about nurses' demographic characteristics and their knowledge about
universal precautions, an observational checklist for assessing practice and health education
program. Results: the study findings showed statistical significant relationship between
nurses' knowledge related to infection cycle pre & post program, (p<0.05), universal
precautions pre post program, (p = 0.000), waste management pre & post program, (p<0.005),
role of scrub and circulatory nurse and their personal characteristics pre post program
(p=0.000). Regarding nurses' observed practice most of nurses practiced its items correctly
pre program and improved post program. (p=0.000). Conclusion: from the findings of the
present study, it can be concluded that nurses' knowledge level was low concerning most of
the items such as infection cycle, disinfection and sterilization pre program among both
groups of nurses (study & control) and increased post program among the intervention group.
The study recommended that all nurses must be medically checked up periodically; and
continuous in-service training should be conducted for nurses related to infection control in
operating rooms.