Knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) regarding hand hygiene among nurses

Introduction and Objective: Hand hygiene refers to any type of hand cleaning, washing or rubbing, which is recognized as an international priority to reduce healthcare-associated infections. Execution of hand hygiene by health care providers is a key factor in patient health. The present study aimed to investigate knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) regarding hand hygiene among nurses.Methods: In this cross-sectional study, ۱۰۰ nurses from Valiasr Hospital in Meshginshahr in ۲۰۱۸ were selected by census method. Their knowledge, attitude and practice regarding hand hygiene were collected using Najafi Ghezljeh et al. questionnaire and analyzed by SPSS software version ۱۶ and Kruskal-Wallis, Mann-Whitney and Pearson tests. In all cases of statistical analysis, p-value less than ۰.۰۵ was considered significant.Results: The mean age of the nurses was ۳۲.۹ years. The mean score of knowledge, attitude and practice of nurses regarding hand hygiene were ۹.۵±۱.۵, ۳.۶±۰.۳۶, and ۴.۵±۰.۴۱, respectively. This study showed that the most unfavorable score of knowledge (۲۹%) is related to " The hand hygiene is not necessary only after doing official tasks", the most unfavorable attitude score (۳۰%) is related to "I think the deficiency of an acceptable soap product can be one of the causes of non-hand wash" and the most unfavorable performance score (۵۷%) was related to "Washing hands after touching healthy skin".Conclusion: According to the present study, nurses have a good knowledge, attitude and performance toward hand hygiene. But there is still a gap with ۱۰۰% ideal situation, due to the inalienable importance of hand hygiene in improving the quality of patient care, interventions should be taken in this direction.

کلیدواژه ها:

hand hygiene ، nurse ، attitude ، knowledge ، practice