Merit Research Journal of Medicine and Medical Sciences (ISSN: 2354-323X) Vol. 8(6) pp. 237-243, June, 2020 Available online http://www.meritresearchjournals.org/mms/index.htm Copyright © 2020 Author(s) retain the copyright of this article Original Research Article Assessment of Standard Nursing Practices Implementation during Blood Culture Sampling In Emergency Department Naseem Akhtar 1 , Muhammad Hussain 2 , Muhammad Afzal 3 , Prof. Dr. Syed Amir Gilani 4 and Awais Jamil 5 Abstract 1 Student of Post RN Year 2, Semester II, (Lahore, Pakistan) 2 Nursing Assistant Professor (Lahore, Pakistan) 3 Nursing Principal (Lahore, Pakistan) 4 DEAN of Allied Health sciences (Lahore, Pakistan) 5 Clinical nurse manager (Lahore, Pakistan) *Corresponding Author’s E-mail: naseem.akhtar.2538@gmail.com Blood culture sample is the main resource to identify the causing agent of severe infection and septicemia. It is also used for the appropriation of antibiotic regime. Unfortunately, blood culture contamination produces misperception regarding the importance of a positive result of blood culture. The knowledge of existing guidelines, education session and competency of blood culture sampling are very beneficial to reducing blood culture contamination. The study aimed to enhance nursing knowledge and practices after the blood culture sampling session and a quasi- experimental study design by an educational intervention. The sampling techniques were purposive; the sample size was 50 nurses, working in the emergency department. Its duration was three months. The rigor of study instruments were checked by content validity index 0.91 and reliability by Cronbach alpha 0.9. The study was analyzed through Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The demographic variable, knowledge and practices will be depicted in the form of frequencies and percentages. The score of an educational intervention was assessed by paired t-test. The results showed that there was an association of improved knowledge with educational intervention as the t-score was 11.79 and practices was 9.39. The p-value is significant at 0.000. Sufficient knowledge makes the nurses to be able to perform practices according to set standards and increased their responsibility to be aware of the criticality of every step taken to perform a procedure and their importance. Good practices can reduce the blood culture contamination rate and not to eliminate it. Keywords: Blood, Practice, Contamination, Knowledge, Intervention, Education INTRODUCTION Blood culture sampling is a technique that needs sufficient knowledge and practice to draw a blood sample. Nurses are responsible to draw a blood culture in the emergency department. They should be knowledgeable about their criticality and the importance of standard techniques. The knowledge of existing guidelines, education session, and competency of blood culture sampling are very beneficial to reduce blood culture contamination. Furthermore, a study approved that evaluating the knowledge of phlebotomy may thus be the first step in the rejection of specimens and improving the quality of specimens (Simundic et al., 2015). Some European and African studies have shown that health care professionals lack expertise or poor phlebotomy practices (Cai et al., 2018). Standards nursing practices play a vital role to reduce the contamination and prevention of infection by following universal precautions. The evaluation of standards precaution can improve the patient safety and treatment outcome and continuous monitoring of nurse’s practices leads to keep the adherence of effective intervention to enhance comp- liance rate (Chu, 2018). Blood culture sample is the main resource to identify the causing agent of severe infection and septicemia and used for the appropriate