Assessment of Health Workers' Knowledge, Perception and Compliance Following a World Health Organisation Multimodal Hand Hygiene Intervention Campaign an a Nigerian Teaching Hospital

Abstract

Background: The transmission of health care-associated infections (HCAI) in hospital environment constitutes a significant major public health problem worldwide and health-care workers are potential source of these infections. This study assessed the knowledge and perception of health workers in a Nigeria Teaching Hospital following the implementation of the World Health Organization (WHO) hand hygiene intervention strategy.

Methods: The study participants were physicians, nurses and other health workers involved in direct patient care. The intervention included training/education; use of reminders in the workplace; and introduction of 70% isopropyl alcohol hand rub in strategic 'points of care' places. The WHO hand hygiene evaluation and feedback tool was used for the assessment of the health workers perception.

Results: A total of 71 (65.7 %) out of 110 respondents participated in the hand hygiene training conducted during the period of the study; however only 58 of the respondents (53.7 %) routinely use alcohol-based hand rub. In the assessment of the knowledge of the main route of cross contamination and the most frequent source of germs responsible for HCAI, 45.9% and 43.9 % of the respondents respectively answered correctly. The follow-up perception survey conducted among the participants indicates that 63.2% of them admitted that the training/educational activities they participated in were very important to improve their hand hygiene practices.

Conclusion: Hand hygiene campaigns using the WHO tools and methodology can improve hand hygiene knowledge, perception and compliance of the health workers.