Infection Management in Hospitals Using a Two-Stage Fuzzy Decision-Making Approach

Abstract

Effective infection management is important for health systems. However, many factors influence infection management. This study aims to determine the most suitable strategies for effective infection management. Factors affecting infection management were determined based on the literature. The Criteria Importance Assessment (CIMAS) method is used for weighting the criteria, while Ranking of Alternatives through Functional mapping of criterion Subintervals into a single Interval (RAFSI) method is used to analyze the most effective alternative. Fuzzy numbers are used to minimize uncertainty during the analysis. Expert selection is based on Z-score weighting. The results of the analysis showed that the most important factors affecting infection management are compliance with patient safety (w = 0.363). The results of the alternative analysis show that the most effective strategy is hygiene and handwashing training (w = 0.826). In this regard, hospital administrators should ensure that hand hygiene, isolation, and sterilization protocols are implemented within the framework of quality standards. Politicians should establish an audit mechanism for infection management and invest in health infrastructure. The healthcare delivery process is important in terms of sustainability and is mostly provided in hospitals. Digital systems are recommended for monitoring hand hygiene and sterilization. One of the important original contributions of this study is the introduction of a set of factors affecting infection management into the literature. Furthermore, it is the first study to develop strategies for infection management using the CIMAS and RAFSI methods.

Received: 13 October 2025 | Revised: 3 December 2025 | Accepted: 10 April 2026



Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest to this work.



Data Availability Statement

Data are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.



Author Contribution Statement

Sefer Aygün: Conceptualization, Investigation, Data curation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Visualization, Supervision, Project administration. Sadiq Hussain: Validation, Resources, Writing – review & editing, Visualization, Supervision, Project administration. Yaşar Gökalp: Conceptualization, Investigation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Visualization, Project administration. Serkan Eti: Methodology, Formal analysis, Writing – review & editing, Visualization. Umutcan Altun: Writing – original draft, Investigation. Berkay Alikan: Writing – original draft, Investigation, Writing – review & editing.