Abstract:

The study was conducted to identify the nurses' opinions about their hand washing attitudes and to assess their hand hygiene practices during routine care. It is a descriptive and observational research. Methods: The nurses (N=63) were asked about their views about hand hygiene habits. Nurses' hand hygiene compliance and hand washing behaviors were observed. Nurses were not aware that their hand washing behaviors were observed. Hand washing behaviors were assessed using the Hand-washing Observation Tool.  Results: Nurses to wash their hands frequently ("often" or "always") during the routine patient care in the hospital setting. Researchers observed a total of 703 hand-washing indications. Unlike the nurses' self-reports on hand washing behaviors, hand hygiene compliance rates ranged from 0 to 2.3%. Hand washings were performed using water-soap (54.7%) and alcohol disinfectant (45.3%). Hand washing behaviors mostly were not performed using proper techniques or performed partly proper techniques (97.8%). Only 2.2% of cases washed their hands using proper technique. Nurses (21%) washed their hands for less than 5 seconds, 73.2% for 5-15 seconds, and 5.8% for more than 15 seconds. Discussions and Conclusions: Self-reported hand washing habits of the nurses were good, in general. However, the observations showed that hand hygiene compliance rates among nurses were extremely poor. The results revealed there is a need for improving the nurses' attitudes for hand washing and proper hand washing technique, and developing education about hand hygiene.

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