Abstract:

Objective: The aim is to assess the knowledge and most importantly the steps and practice of hand hygiene among the pre-clinical medical student of Texila American University

It is important because good hand hygiene practice breaks the chain of many pathogens such us staphylococcus aureus among others thus help prevent iatrogenic and nosocomial infections .the rate of these infections are on the increase every day.

Methods: A universal questionnaire from world health organization was used to assess the knowledge and practice and a self-structured question used to assess the steps in hand hygiene.

Results: 50 student from p1 to md4 participated and 25% from md3. 86% of our participant were females and mostly from south America and falls within the age of 20yrs, medical student of which 73.3% admit they had no formal training in hand hygiene.66.7% had knowledge about the route through which iatrogenic infections are transmitted and 40% nosocomial infection .infection preventive measures before and after procedures, 93.3% agreed to hand washing instead of alcohol hand rub. On things to avoid that will increase the likelihood infections such as putting on jewellery, damaged skin, artificial nails and regular hand cream use 93.3% agreed they can colonies the hands with harmful germs. Regarding the practice there was a very low response in the steps of hand hygiene, only 20% of the respondent were able to list the correct steps of hand washing

Conclusion: based on this study it is evident that there is a fair knowledge on hand hygiene but the response to the practice was low. Again most participant of this research didn’t undergo any formal hand hygiene Programme therefore it should be organize more often to improve the knowledge and practice among future clinicians to prevent hospital acquired infections.

Keywords: iatrogenic infection, nosocomial infection, hand hygiene.

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