title: A Study to Assess Knowledge and Attitude Regarding Hand Hygiene amongst Residents and Nursing Staff in a Tertiary Health Care Setting of Bhopal City.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Infection due to hospital-acquired microbes is an evolving problem worldwide, and horizontal transmission of bacterial organism continues to cause a high nosocomial infection rate in health care settings. Most nosocomial infections are thought to be transmitted by the hands of health care workers.The application of hand hygiene is effective in reducing infection rates.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To assess the level of knowledge and attitude regarding hand hygiene practices amongst the health care professionals and to identify areas of gaps in their knowledge and attitude.
  
  
  METHODS
  A cross-sectional study.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A total 160 respondents were studied about their knowledge and attitude towards hand hygiene practices and significant difference with a p-value of 0.0025 was observed regarding most frequent source of germs responsible for health care associated infections among resident and nurses. A significant difference with p-value of 0.0001 & 0.04 was observed in colonization due to jewellery and artificial nail among the study groups. 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-value <0.001.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Present study highlights the need of repeated training sessions regarding hand hygiene practices among the health care workers to provide the current knowledge in the area with a behavioral change in attitudes and practices leading to reduction of nosocomial infections.
authors.affiliation: Post Graduate Resident, Department of Microbiology, Peoples College of Medical Sciences and Research Centre , Bhopal, India .
authors.forename: Veena
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Maheshwari
authors.affiliation: Associate Professor, Department of Microbiology, Peoples College of Medical Sciences and Research Centre , Bhopal, India .
authors.forename: Navin Chandra M
authors.initials: NC
authors.lastname: Kaore
authors.affiliation: Professor, Department of Microbiology, Peoples College of Medical Sciences and Research Centre , Bhopal, India .
authors.forename: Vijay Kumar
authors.initials: VK
authors.lastname: Ramnani
authors.affiliation: Associate Professor, Department of Community Medicine, Peoples College of Medical Sciences and Research Centre , Bhopal, India .
authors.forename: Sanjay Kumar
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Gupta
authors.affiliation: Associate Professor, Department of Community Medicine, Peoples College of Medical Sciences and Research Centre , Bhopal, India .
authors.forename: Amod
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Borle
authors.affiliation: Post Graduate Resident, Department of Community Medicine, Peoples College of Medical Sciences and Research Centre , Bhopal, India .
authors.forename: Rituja
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kaushal
keywords: Hand washing practices; Health care workers; Hospital acquired microbes; Nosocomial infection