Hand Washing: Knowledge, Attitude and Practices among House Surgeons in a Tertiary Care Centre in South Kerala

Background: Hospital acquired infections are gaining attention, rates varying from 3 to 21% globally, based on the fact that transmission occurs through the hands of health care workers.Hand hygiene is one of the best measures for infection control.Objective: To study the knowledge, attitude and practices related to hand washing among house surgeons of a tertiary care centre in South Kerala.Methodology: A cross sectional study was conducted among 102 house surgeons available at the time of study, in a tertiary care institution in Kerala.To meet the objective, a self-administered, pre-tested structured questionnaire and WHO hand hygiene questionnaire were applied.The data was entered in MS Excel spreadsheet 2010 and analysed using statistical package.Descriptive statistics and Fischer's test of significance were done as appropriate, and p<0.05 was considered as significant.Results: Almost all the participants had good knowledge about hand washing, 76.5% had good practices and 72.5% good attitude.The most neglected hand hygiene situation was washing the hands before touching the patient (31.2%).Only 19 out of 102(18.6%)were fully aware of correct techniques in hand washing.Conclusion: Almost all house surgeons had adequate knowledge, and majority had good attitude and good practices.But less than one-fifth knew the correct steps by the WHO hand washing protocols and there was default in adherence.The importance needs to be reinforced.