• African health sciences · Jun 2013

    Hand hygiene practices among community Health Officers in Rivers State, Nigeria.

    • O B Braimoh and S E Udeabor.
    • Department of Preventive Dentistry, Faculty of Dentistry, College of Health Sciences, University of Port Harcourt, Choba Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria.
    • Afr Health Sci. 2013 Jun 1; 13 (2): 507511507-11.

    BackgroundHealth care associated infections are most commonly transmitted by the hands of Health care workers and other hospital personnel.ObjectiveTo investigate compliance with hand hygiene guidelines and methods of hand hygiene practice among community health officers in Rivers State Nigeria.MethodsSelf administered questionnaires were distributed to 68 community health officers. The questionnaires consisted of 19 items which contained information on bio-demographic characteristics and hand hygiene practices. Data were analysed using SPSS-16 statistical software. Proportions were compared using Chi- square test and 'p' value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant.ResultsThe response rate was 97.1%. There were 11 (16.7%) males and 55 (83.3%) females with a male to female ratio of 1: 5. The age of the participants ranged from 28-56 years with a mean age of 39.7±6.7. Washing of hands before and after contact with patient was 60.1% and 97% respectively. The difference was significant (p<0.01). Allergy to gloves was 15.2%. About three-quarter (77.3%) of the workers used soap and water to wash the hands when soiled or visibly contaminated. None of the workers used alcohol hand rub.ConclusionThough there was improved compliance to hand hygiene guidelines, this still fall short of acceptable standards. The provision and promotion of the proper use of alcohol-based hand rub may further improve compliance with hand hygiene by reducing the time required to perform it and the convenience of the method.

      Pubmed     Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…