• Chigozie Jesse Uneke, Chinwendu Daniel Ndukwe, Patrick Gold Oyibo, Kingsley Onuoha Nwakpu, Richard Chukwuka Nnabu, and Nittita Prasopa-Plaizier.
• Department of Medical Microbiology/Parasitology, Faculty of Clinical Medicine, Ebonyi State University, Abakaliki, Nigeria. Electronic address: unekecj@yahoo.com.
• Braz J Infect Dis. 2014 Jan 1;18(1):21-7.

BackgroundHealth care-associated infection remains a significant hazard for hospitalized patients. Hand hygiene is a fundamental action for ensuring patient safety.ObjectiveTo promote adoption of World Health Organization Hand Hygiene Guidelines to enhance compliance among doctors and nurses and improve patient safety.MethodsThe study design was a cross sectional intervention in a Federal Teaching Hospital South-eastern Nigeria. Interventions involved training/education; introduction of hand rub; and hand hygiene reminders. The impact of interventions and hand hygiene compliance were evaluated using World Health Organization direct observation technique.ResultsThe post-intervention hand hygiene compliance rate was 65.3%. Hand hygiene indications showed highest compliance rate 'after body fluid exposure' (75.3%) and 'after touching a patient' (73.6%) while the least compliance rate was recorded 'before touching a patient' (58.0%). Hand hygiene compliance rate was significantly higher among nurses (72.9%) compared to doctors (59.7%) (χ(2)=23.8, p<0.05). Hand hygiene indication with significantly higher compliance rate was "before clean/aseptic procedure" (84.4%) (χ(2)=80.74, p<0.05). Out of the 815 hand hygiene practices recorded 550 (67.5%) were hand rub action.Conclusionshand hygiene campaigns using the World Health Organization tools and methodology can be successfully executed in a tertiary health facility of a low-income setting with far reaching improvements in compliance.Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Editora Ltda. All rights reserved.

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