Knowledge, attitude and barriers to hands hygiene practice: a study of Kampala International University undergraduate medical students

Abstract

Background: Hand hygiene is the simplest method that is effective in terms of cost with its importance in preventing transmission of microorganisms and infections. Though this being the case, it has been found to be clumsy and faulty in most healthcare settings. What has been done on assessing the medical students" knowledge, attitude and practice and comparisons of these factors between the medical disciplines is not exhaustive. Methods: A descriptive cross sectional study was conducted among the undergraduate medical students to assess the knowledge in medical students, their attitude and barriers to hand hygiene practice where simple random sampling technique was applied to obtain a sample size. A questionnaire on alcohol-based hand rubs and WHO recommendations on hand hygiene was used for data collection. Results: A total of 392 respondents were interviewed. The respondents comprised of 232 males and 160 females. The overall mean score for individual knowledge was 49.4%. The study revealed that more than half of the respondents 203 had poor knowledge on hand hygiene while 43.1% had average and 5.1% were consider to have good knowledge. Most of the respondents had good attitude on hand hygiene on most of the aspects that were assessed. Several barriers to effective hand hygiene practice were highlighted by the respondent. Conclusions: The study concluded that more sensitization was needed to increase awareness and knowledge of the practice in medical students which could be achieved by adding a course on hand hygiene practice to the undergraduate medical students" curriculum amongst others.

The Era of Coronavirus; Knowledge, Attitude, Practices, and Barriers to Hand Hygiene Among Makerere University Students and Katanga Community Residents

“…Overall, only 8.4% of the participants had good knowledge of hand hygiene, a finding that is similar to a study in India and among medical students at Kampala International University (28,29). 11.7% of the university students had good knowledge compared to 0.9% of the Katanga residents.…”

“…The study found that 29.0% of the participants had a good attitude and 50.1% had moderate attitudes to hand hygiene which is similar to a study among Kampala International University medical students who were found to have a positive attitude to hand hygiene (29). A high number of Makerere University students 25.9% were found to have a poor attitude to hand hygiene compared to Katanga slum residents 9.8%.…”

“…Participants who had been taught had hygiene were 9.2 times more likely to demonstrate all the seven steps than their counterparts, showing the importance of hand hygiene education and promotion as a means of improving its proper practice (21). The commonest barriers to hand hygiene were lack of soap, lack of soaps, antiseptics, detergents and alcohol sanitizers (, lack of running water and negligence findings that are no different from a study by Muiru (29) and a study by Al-Naggar which showed that laziness was the main barrier (34). The majority of the patients had more than three barriers to hand hygiene.…”

An Institution-Based Assessment of Students’ Hand Washing Behavior

“…e participants in this study indicated the lack of clean running water on campus, dirty wash room facilities, forgetting to wash hands, and wash rooms being far away as the reasons for skipping hand washing. ese and other reasons identified in other studies like lack of soap, laziness, lack of awareness on hand hygiene importance [30], and cleanliness of wash room [22] could explain the disparity in the proportions of students with a high frequency of hand washing (or hand washing behavior) between our sample and that of the Turkish study. ese could also explain why the majority (75.2%) of our study participants had a poor hand washing practice score.…”

“…However, a study among undergraduate medical students in Kampala indicated that more than 50% of the study participants had poor knowledge on hand hygiene. More than 40% of the study participants were not aware of the importance of hand washing, and approximately 90% of them indicated that there was lack of clean running water in hospital wards during their clinical activities [30].…”