Knowledge, attitudes and practices of hand hygiene among final year medical and nursing students at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura

Abstract

Effective hand hygiene is essential for reducing healthcare associated infections. However, compliance of healthcare workers to hand hygiene guidelines are reportedly poor. It is important therefore to instill adequate knowledge and good attitudes and practices at the time of primary training of the healthcare workers. This study was done to identify gaps in knowledge, attitudes and practices to improve existing training programs and enhance good practices and working ethics in the future. A self-administered questionnaire based cross sectional study was done to compare the knowledge, attitudes, practices and satisfaction (KAPS) of facilities between final year medical and nursing students of the Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Sri Jayewardenepura. Participants had moderate knowledge (77%) but attitudes, practices and satisfaction of facilities of all the participants was overall poor (<50%). However the nursing students had better knowledge (p=0.023), attitudes (p<0.001), practices (p<0.001) and satisfaction of facilities (p<0.001) compared with the medical students. The knowledge, attitudes, practices and satisfaction of facilities of medical and nursing students are unsatisfactory. The study shows the need for further improvement of the existing hand hygiene training programs to address the gaps in knowledge, attitudes and practices. Further, there is a need to improve the facilities available for hand hygiene and make them readily accessible for students at their training centers to enable them to engage in good practices which will be beneficial for them as doctors and nurses in the future.

A Study on Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices on Hand Hygiene amongst Residents and Nursing Staff at Tertiary Care Hospital, Drug Chhattisgarh, India

“…Our results are comparable with other studies (Ariyaratne MHJD et al, 2013, Veena et al, 2014 which reported that 72% and 75% of participants knew that unhygienic hands of health care workers were the main route of transmission respectively.…”

Hand Hygiene Training and Its Impact on the Knowledge of Undergraduate Nursing Students in Kosovo

“…The overall scores before the training were low and after the training were moderate similar to other studies (Thakker&Jadhav, 2015;Ariyarathne et al, 2013). Thakker and Jadhav (2015) conducted a similar study to this and documented poor knowledge.…”

Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of nursing students regarding hand hygiene in Western region of Nepal

“…This result is in accordance to the similar study conducted in Sri Lanka and India. 6,7 Use of alcohol-based hand rub solutions or gels has been shown to be effective for hand antisepsis. 10 But in our study only 24% of the participants knew that 20 seconds is the minimum time required for effective hand hygiene as recommended by the WHO guidelines.…”

“…Increasing the supplies necessary for hand washing and institutional support is essential in combating substandard practices in hand hygiene. 6 Thus it is recommended a quantitative measure of hand hygiene facilities be done to better access the available resources and necessary improvements be made accordingly.…”

“…Various studies show the need for further improvement of existing hand hygiene programmes to address the gaps in KAP. 6,7 However in the context of Nepal, very limited studies have been conducted to explore this subject although the prevalence of healthcare associated infections is higher in our region. This study was undertaken with the objective of assessing the Knowledge, attitude and practice of hand-hygiene among the nursing students in the Western part of Nepal.…”