Abstract

A childcare center is a place where care and educational skills are rendered to children under the age of 5 years, it is mostly attached to a school for onward progression to higher classes. Globally, children attending childcare centers are subjected to higher risk for a variety of infections. This study assessed the caregivers’ knowledge and practice of preventive infection measures. This study utilized a cross-sectional quantitative research design; a multistage sampling technique was used to select respondents from both public and primary school-owned childcare centers within Sagamu Local Government of Ogun state. About 262 respondents were recruited; twenty respondents were from public school-owned childcare centers and 242 were from private school-owned childcare centers. None of the participants had good knowledge of infection preventive measures while the majority 89% had poor knowledge. The practice of handwashing after toileting for each child and wiping the nose was very low (4.2% and 3.1%). There is a significant positive relationship between caregiver’s knowledge and the practice of infection prevention in childcare centers. It is recommended that strategies need to be put in place to improve caregivers' knowledge and practice of infection prevention such as training at pre-employment and periodically (before academic term resumption in schools) on the various strategies of infection prevention.

Key words: Infections, Child health, Infection control, Childcare caregivers