Knowledge, Attitude and Practice (KAP) Study of Nurses Working at Meshgin Valiasr Hospital Regarding Hand Hygiene in 2018

Hand Hygiene by health care providers is a key factor in patientschr('39') health. The aim of this study was to determine knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) of nurses working in Valiasr Hospital in Meshginshahr regarding hand hygiene in 2018.

In this cross-sectional study, 100 nurses working in all wards of Valiasr hospital in Meshginshahr in 2018 were selected by census method. Nurseschr('39') knowledge, attitude and practice questionnaire about hand hygiene was used for data collection. Data were analyzed by SPSS software version 16 and Kruskal-Wallis, Mann-Whitney and Pearson correlation tests. In all cases of statistical analysis, p-value less than 0.05 were considered significant.

The mean age of the nurses was 32.9 years. The mean score of knowledge, attitude and practice of nurses regarding hand hygiene were 9.5±1.5, 3.6±0.36, and 4.5±0.41, respectively. This study showed that the most unfavorable score of knowledge (29%) was related to the phrase "hand hygiene is not necessary after office works". The most unfavorable attitude score (30%) related to "I think the lack of an acceptable soap product can be one of the reasons not wash your hand" and the most unfavorable performance score (57%) was related to "Washing hands after touching healthy skin".

According to the present study, nurses have a good knowledge, attitude and practice about hand hygiene. But there is still a gap with ideal situation, which due to the undeniable importance of hand hygiene in improving the quality of patient care; interventions should be made in this regard.