Effects of a Hand Hygiene Program on Hand Hygiene Awareness and Behavior among Nursing Students

Abstract

　The purpose of this study was to clarify the effects of a “Program for the visualization of the key moments for hand hygiene” on students’ awareness of the key moments for hand hygiene, hand hygiene behavior, and whether discrepancies exist between awareness of the key moments for hand hygiene and hand hygiene behavior, with the aim of introducing continuing education methods for hand hygiene.
　The subjects were 26 third-year students in a three-year nursing school program. To determine hand hygiene behavior, a questionnaire survey on the awareness of the key moments for hand hygiene and the hand hygiene compliance rate was conducted before and after the intervention. Students’ awareness levels of the key moments for hand hygiene and behavior before and after the intervention were compared with the Wilcoxon signed rank test, and the relationship between the intervention and whether or not there was a discrepancy between the awareness of the key moments for hand hygiene and hand hygiene behavior was analyzed with Fisher’s exact test.
　The results showed significant increases in all items related to awareness of the key moments for hand hygiene. Hand hygiene behavior showed no significant differences in “2. Before clean procedures” and “3. After body fluid exposure risk,” but there were significant differences in “1. Before touching a patient,” “4. After touching a patient,” “5. After touching patient surroundings,” and “Overall compliance rate.” The intervention was not significantly related to whether or not there was a discrepancy between awareness of the key moments for hand hygiene and hand hygiene behavior. These results suggest that the program affects nursing students’ awareness of the key moments for hand hygiene and leads to improvements in hand hygiene behavior.