Hand hygiene compliance among healthcare workers at Muhimbili Orthopaedics Institute, Dar es Salaam Tanzania

Abstract

Background of the study: In Tanzania hand hygiene was rarely practiced when gloves were used, compliance to hand hygiene varies by health worker characteristics whereby female health workers were better at hand hygiene, and there is a variation in compliance across facilities level, ownership, and location. Therefore, the study will assess the compliance and knowledge of healthcare workers regarding hand hygiene at Muhimbili Orthopaedic Institute Objective: To assess hand hygiene compliance among healthcare workers at Muhimbili orthopedic institute, Dar es Salaam Tanzania. Materials and methods: This is a cross-sectional study involving observational method employed to 251 of healthcare worker selected by multistage random sampling. Self administered questionnaire and observation checklist was used as data collection tools. Data was analyzed by SPSS version 23 to obtain descriptive statistics and p-value of less than 0.05 was considered significant. Results: The overall prevalence of knowledge regarding hand hygiene was found to be 58.7%. Almost (213, 84.9%) of participants were knowledgeable with the wearing of hand jewelry increases germs. Inadequate knowledge was most reported (193, 76.9%) as the barrier to comply with the hand hygiene. Most of healthcare workers prefers to use alcohol (43.03%) since it ismore effective against germs. But, 42.63% of health care worker spent a minimum of 20 seconds for hand rub. Compliance of hand hygiene by healthcare worker was 55.4% among healthcare works. Conclusion and recommendation: In this study despite of moderate knowledge by health workers they also showed slightly higher compliance with hand hygiene. Then, there should be conscious efforts to improve knowledge and hand hygiene compliance in healthcare workers especially among medical and nursing professionals.