Assessment of Knowledge of Healthcare Professionals on Hand Hygiene Practices in Tertiary Care Hospitals: A Descriptive Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Hand hygiene is one of the significant strategies to control and reduce infections, mortality, and healthcare cost in healthcare settings.  Knowledge about hand hygiene practices helps to adopt optimal and validated techniques to prevent the transmission of infections.  Therefore, the study was carried out to assess the healthcare professionals’ knowledge of hand hygiene practices in hospital settings. Objectives: To assess the knowledge of healthcare professionals regarding hand hygiene practices in hospitals. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out on healthcare professionals. After fulfilling the inclusion criteria, a total of 250 participants were selected by using convenient sampling techniques. The WHO questionnaire on Hand Hygiene Knowledge was used to fulfill the aims of the study. Descriptive statistics were utilized to analyze data. Results: The results of the current study showed that 59.2% of healthcare professionals had received formal training in hand hygiene in the last past 3 years. Overall moderate knowledge had been observed among healthcare professionals across the different departments. Conclusions: Having adequate knowledge related to hand hygiene practice cannot work alone to prevent the cross-transmission of germs. Proper surveillance and observation can increase compliance with hand hygiene. There is a strong demand to initiate different activities and workshops to train healthcare professionals on hand hygiene. As healthcare professionals are in close contact with patients in different departments even intensive care units. So, therefore, they need to be fully equipped with the basic knowledge and practice of HH.