Background: The compliance with standard precautions is a primary strategy for the prevention
of operating room infections. Aim; the study aimed to assess the relationship between nurses'
knowledge and their compliance with standard precautions in operating room. Design; descriptive
research design was used. Setting; this study was conducted in the operating room at general surgery
department at Benha University Hospitals and Benha Teaching Hospital, Egypt. Sample; All available
nurses (60) working at operating room. Tools; two tools were used, tool (1); Self-assessment
questionnaire to assess nurses' knowledge regarding standard precautions and tool (2): Compliance
checklist to assess nurses' practice regarding standard precautions. Results; found that 45% of nurses
their age ranged between 21≤30 years, 63.3% of them were females, while 53.3% of them were
graduated from Technical Institute of Nursing and not attended training courses in standard precautions
against infection during the past year, Meanwhile 68.3% of the studied nurses had unsatisfactory level
of total knowledge about standard precautions in the operating room. Also 73.3% of nurses were not
adherent with standard precautions in operation room. This study showed that there were highly
statistically significant positive correlation between total nurses' knowledge score and total nurses'
compliance score regarding standard precautions in the operating room. Conclusion; The present study
shows that more than two thirds of the studied nurses had unsatisfactory level of total knowledge about
standard precautions in the operating room, and less than two third of them were not adherent with
standard precautions in operation room. There was a highly statistically significant positive correlation
between total nurses' knowledge and total nurses' compliance about standard precautions
Recommendation; there is a need for continuous monitoring and evaluating of nurses' performance
regarding compliance with standard precautions and correction of poor performance is essential.