Hand hygiene among doctors and nurses in a tertiary-care hospital in abha, ksa

Abstract EN

Background : health care workers' (HCW) adherence to hand hygiene remains low in most hospitals.

Objectives.

Identify the level of compliance with hand hygiene practice among doctors and nurses in critical-care areas of Aseer Central hospital, Abha.

Setting : A tertiary-care hospital, in Abha, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Participants : are around 1,751 nurses and 813 doctors.

Measurements : direct observation of hand hygiene practices by doctors and nurses during routine patient care were documented by the infection control team.

Results : compliance with hand hygiene was 81.3 % among the nurses and 43.5 % by the doctors.

(X2 = 620.369 ; p < 0.05).

Over all, compliance with hand hygiene among healthcare workers was 63.7.

% Conclusion : our results suggest that compliance with hand hygiene among our healthcare professionals was low, and also among doctors who should be the role model for others.

There is need to identify the reasons for such poor compliance and fashion out more effective strategies to remedy the situation.