Nursing Students Knowledge and Practices Regarding Hand Hygiene

Abstract

Hand hygiene is a term used for washing hand with antimicrobial soap or alcohol-based hand rub for the purpose of removing all foreign particles from the hands either it is dust, soil or any infected germs. A nurse is a person who always in touches of patients during her duty hours so, it is very important that she have proper knowledge regarding hand hygiene and implemented it for the patient benefit. With effective hand hygiene actions, she reduces rate of heath care associated infections. This study was done to assess the knowledge and practice of hand hygiene among all general nursing student including first, second and third year of Mayo Hospital Lahore. The main purpose of this study was, to assess knowledge and practice of nursing students towards the hand's hygiene. The descriptive cross-sectional design and simple random sampling technique was used in this study. The data collected with the help of Yes/ No questionnaire from 171 nursing students. Out of 171(100%) nursing students 113(66.2%) nursing students have knowledge regarding hand hygiene and 76(45%) students perform proper hand hygiene practices when they provide care to the patients. The study finding shows that the nursing students had moderate knowledge regarding hand hygiene but on the other hand they perform poor practice of it during their clinical hours so, according to this study results the nursing students need proper training and lectures on hand hygiene knowledge and strictly monitor by their mentors when they used hand hygiene actions during providing care to the patients