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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Med.
Sec. Healthcare Professions Education
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1509238
This article is part of the Research TopicComprehensive Strategies for Public Health Education across Diverse Audiences and Settings to Control Nosocomial InfectionView all 6 articles
Application of Directly Observed Procedural Skills in Hospital Infection Training: a randomized controlled trial
Provisionally accepted- Guangzhou Panyu Central Hospital, Guangzhou, China
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Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of the Direct Observation of Procedural Skills (DOPS) method in enhancing hospital infection training. Methods: A total of 196 infection control staff from clinical departments were selected from a hospital and divided into a control group and an experimental group. The control group received conventional hospital infection control, which training included 10 hours of theoretical lectures and 5 hours of practical demonstrations, while the experimental group received three formative assessments using the DOPS method in addition to the conventional training at two-month intervals. The results of the three DOPS assessments in the experimental group were analyzed and compared. The training effectiveness was further evaluated by comparing theoretical test scores and satisfaction ratings between the two groups. Results: Among these 196 study subjects, the majority were over 35 years old, female, doctors or nurses, with middle titles, a bachelor's degree, and over 10 years of working seniority. The use of protective equipment and the handling of emergencies increased over the three DOPS evaluations (3.93 vs 3.94 vs 4.15 and 2.37 vs 2.53 vs 2.68, respectively). After adjusting for all covariates, the overall theoretical knowledge score in the experimental group was 7.968 times higher than that of the control group. The number of participants in the experimental group who were satisfied with the training was 86 compared to 71 in the control group for knowledge retention, 82 vs 62 for clinical application, 83 vs 67 for knowledge extrapolation, 88 vs 73 for training methods, and 89 vs 59 for motivation. Conclusion: Hospital infection control skills are important for clinical procedural skills. This study found that the application of the DOPS method in infection control training improved trainees' practical skills, knowledge retention, and ability to implement infection control measures effectively in clinical settings. These results highlight the value of DOPS as a targeted intervention to enhance infection control training outcomes, supporting its further promotion in clinical education programs.
Keywords: Direct Observation of Procedural Skills, hospital infection, training, application, Satisfaction
Received: 15 Oct 2024; Accepted: 14 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Liu, Hu and Huang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Xiaoyan Liu, Guangzhou Panyu Central Hospital, Guangzhou, China
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