Abstract:

Hand washing dates back to biblical times and the early days of medicine. This simple task is the most important way to prevent infection resulting from pathogenic microorganisms found in all healthcare environments. Not only does hand washing prevent the spread of potentially deadly nosocomial infection, it also saves money. Hospital acquired infections may result in millions of dollars in costs to the healthcare (Cooper, Wisenor, & Roberts, 2005Hand washing is recognized as the leading measure to prevent cross-transmission of microorganisms and to reduce the incidence of health care associated infections. Despite the relative simplicity of this procedure, compliance with hand washing among health care providers is as low as 40% (Nair, Hanumantappa, Hiremath, Siraj, & Raghunath, 2014).

Health care-associated infections are a serious problem in health care services as they may cause prolonged hos­pital stays, high mortality, long-term disability, and ex­cess health care costs. Most health care-associated infec­tions can be transmitted from patient to patient via the hands of health care workers. In other words, health care workers’ hands due to poor hand washing are the most usual type of vehicle for the transmission of health care-associated infections (Nabavi, Alavi-Moghaddam, Gachkar, & Moeinian, 2015).

Infection caused due to hospital acquired microbes is an evolving problem worldwide, and horizontal transmission of bacterial organisms continues to cause a high nosocomial infection rate in health care settings. Nosocomial infections due to poor hand washing are a major cause of increasing morbidity, mortality and health care costs among hospitalized patients worldwide (Maheshwari, 2014). The high prevalence of these infections, as high as 19%, in developing countries poses a challenge to health care providers. Hand washing is considered the single most cost-effective public health measure for preventing health care associated infection (HCAI) (Maheshwari, 2014).

Over 95% of neonatal deaths occur in developing countries with about half of them occurring at home. In Africa, diarrheal disease is the single largest cause of death among children under-five and a major cause of childhood illness. Some of the risk factors for death from diarrhea in children in sub-Saharan Africa are poor nutrition, early introduction of complementary foods and poor hygiene at the household level (Nabavi et al., 2015). Little is known about the relative contributions of different diarrhea-causing pathogens to diarrheal deaths. Unfortunately, there is a paucity of information on the impact of hand washing practices by birth attendants or caretakers on neonatal mortality (Aigbiremolen et al., 2015). Hand washing is the simplest, most effective measure for preventing nosocomial infections. Despite advances in infection control and hospital epidemiology, Semmelweis’ message is not consistently translated into clinical practice, and health-care workers’ adherence to recommended hand washing practices is unacceptably low (Pittet, 2001). Numerous studies document the pivotal role of healthcare workers’ (HCWs) hands in the propagation of microorganisms within the healthcare environment and ultimately to patients (Allegranzi & Pittet, 2009).

To address this problem, continuous efforts are being made to identify effective and sustainable strategies. One of such efforts is the introduction of an evidence-based concept of “My five moments for hand washing” by World Health Organization. These five moments that call for the use of hand washing include the moment before touching a patient, before performing aseptic and clean procedures, after being at risk of exposure to body fluids, after touching a patient, and after touching patient surroundings. This concept has been aptly used to improve understanding, training, monitoring, and reporting hand washing among healthcare workers (Nair et al., 2014).

Hence the WHO’s concept was made the basis of the present study to evaluate hand washing awareness and compliance among undergraduate medical students of the numerous medical and nursing colleges around the globe. This study is the first of its kind in this institute and is expected to inspire further projects in other medical institutions and in the long run promote the concept of proper hand washing among trainee medical students (Al Kadi & Salati, 2012).

References:

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