COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDES, PRACTICES, AND SATISFACTION OF FACILITIES IN HAND HYGIENE AMONG CRRIS AND NURSING STUDENTS IN A TERTIARY TEACHING HOSPITAL IN SOUTH INDIA

Background:Practising hand hygiene is essential in minimizing morbidity and mortality in surgical services. Compliance with proper hand hygiene is reportedly lacking among house surgeons (CRRIS) and nursing trainees that need to be addressed as formal training prior to posting is not in the curriculum. Objective: 1. To undertake a gap analysis in knowledge, attitudes, and practice compliances in HH among CRRIS and graduate nursing trainees at KIMS, a tertiary teaching hospital 2. To compare facilities, knowledge, attitudes, practices, and satisfaction. Materials and methods: A cross-sectional Institutional-based study for a period of 6 months among 90 CRRIS and 60 Nursing trainees. WHO hand hygiene questionnaire was used to assess Knowledge and prevalidated structured questionnaire was used to assess Attitude and practice. Z test was used to compare the percentage of correct responses of the two study groups. Result: A significant difference with a p-value of 0.0025 was observed as the most frequent source of germs responsible for healthcare-associated infections. The attitude regarding correct hand hygiene practices to be followed at all times was found to be better among nurses (62.5%) as compared to residents (21.3%) which was found to be highly significant with p-a a value <0.001. Conclusion: Our study highlights the need for training sessions regarding hand hygiene practices among the CRRIS and nursing students to provide the current knowledge in the area with a change in attitudes, approaches, and practices leading to the reduction of nosocomial infections.