Background: Prevention of respiratory infection among workers in geriatric facilities is important because the workers can transmit these infections to the elderly. Therefore, this study intended to assess the knowledge and compliance of preventive behavior against respiratory tract infection among these workers.Methods: Data were collected from 202 workers in geriatric facilities via a questionnaire-based survey from July 19 to August 8, 2014. Data were analyzed using the SPSS 21.0 program.Results: Among the workers, 44.6% experienced respiratory tract infection in the last 1 year. The score for knowledge of respiratory tract infection prevention among the workers was 10.6 points out of 12. The average score for compliance of the preventive behavior against respiratory tract infection was 34.6 points out of 48. The correlation between preventive knowledge and compliance of the preventive behavior against respiratory tract infection was not verified (r=0.00, P=0.967).Conclusion: In this study, the level of knowledge of respiratory infection prevention among the workers in the elderly care facility was high. However, the level of compliance was not sufficiently high. In addition, no correlation was found between their preventive knowledge and compliance. Therefore, a preventive program that focuses on the compliance of respiratory infection prevention rather than on its knowledge needs to be developed.

Keywords: Compliance, Knowledge, Respiratory tract infections