A Study to Compare the Knowledge of Hand Hygiene among Nurses in a Public Tertiary-Care and a Private Corporate Hospital in Amritsar

Background Hand hygiene is a simple, cost-effective way to reduce nosocomial infections, but the compliance with hand hygiene remains low. Nurses, due to the nature of their work, spend maximum time with the patients and therefore have higher number of opportunities to transmit infections from one patient to another. Material and method A cross-sectional survey was conducted using World Health Organizations Hand Hygiene Knowledge Questionnaire for Health Care Workers. Data obtained from the questionnaires was analyzed using descriptive statistics, and Pearson chi-Square Test. Results there were significant gaps in the knowledge of nurses with respect to the various aspects of hand hygiene.50 % of the nurses in the public hospital had not received any hand hygiene training in the past three years. Less than 30 % of the public-sector nurses knew that unclean hands were the main route of cross-transmission, more than 50 % of the respondents were not aware of the primary source of germs and the correct time duration for the use of handrub.79 % nurses in the private hospital had no idea that handrubbing is more effective against germs than handwashing. Conclusion Implementation of need-based education and training programmes, along with other elements of WHOs multimodal strategy is required to improve the knowledge and change the behavior of nurses.