The use of hand hygiene and safe injection practices for all patients in all settings is known as what?

• A. Standard precautions
• B. Universal precautions
• C. Contact precautions
• D. Airborne precautions

Answer: (A)

Standard precautions are the baseline practices used with every patient to prevent transmission, with hand hygiene and safe injection practices at the center. These precautions assume that all blood, body fluids, secretions, excretions (except sweat), nonintact skin, and mucous membranes could be infectious, so they’re applied universally, not just for patients with known infections. This makes them the best fit because they encompass the routine actions you take daily, regardless of the patient’s condition, and they guide proper use of PPE, respiratory etiquette, sharps handling, and environmental cleaning. The other options refer to more specific or older concepts: universal precautions focused mainly on bloodborne pathogens, while contact and airborne precautions apply to particular routes of transmission and specific situations, not to every patient in every setting.