Evaluation of existing knowledge, attitude, perception and compliance of hand hygiene among health care workers in a Tertiary care centre in Uttarakhand

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: To evaluate existing knowledge, attitude and perception and compliance of hand hygiene activity among various healthcare workers in a tertiary care centre in Uttarakhand. METHODS: A cross sectional study was done for a period of two months. WHO hand hygiene and compliance form with slight modification were used to study knowledge, attitude, perception and compliance (overt and covert) by direct observational technique. Statistical analysis was done using Microsoft Excel 2010 and IBM SPSS 23.0 version software. RESULTS: A total of 220 participants were given questionnaire out of which 172 participated in study. 159 (92.4%) had already received training in HH in the past 3 years and were using alcohol based hand rub routinely. The overall correct knowledge score of various professional categories of HCW was good i.e. 71.6% Most of the healthcare workers knew the importance of adhering to this simple practice in prevention of healthcare associated infections. Most of them were aware of the conditions before or after when HH activity has to be performed. Poor compliance of hand hygiene was noted among healthcare workers on covert observation. For given hand hygiene opportunities the HH was started in 53.2% and 15.7% of overt and covert observations, respectively. However, HH compliance decreased drastically among HCW, which was 15.7% and 1.6% of overt and covert observations, respectively. INTERPRETATION AND CONCLUSIONS: The acceptance of the fact by most of the HCW that direct vigilance over this activity helped them performed better, suggested the demand of regular surveillance and several other promotional activities in the centre.