Abstract:
Effective hand hygiene is essential for reducing healthcare associated infections. However,
compliance of healthcare workers to hand hygiene guidelines are reportedly poor. It is important
therefore to instill adequate knowledge and good attitudes and practices at the time of primary
training of the healthcare workers. This study was done to identify gaps in knowledge, attitudes
and practices to improve existing training programs and enhance good practices and working
ethics in the future. A self-administered questionnaire based cross sectional study was done to
compare the knowledge, attitudes, practices and satisfaction (KAPS) of facilities between final
year medical and nursing students of the Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Sri
Jayewardenepura. Participants had moderate knowledge (77%) but attitudes, practices and
satisfaction of facilities of all the participants was overall poor (<50%). However the nursing
students had better knowledge (p=0.023), attitudes (p<0.001), practices (p<0.001) and
satisfaction of facilities (p<0.001) compared with the medical students. The knowledge,
attitudes, practices and satisfaction of facilities of medical and nursing students are
unsatisfactory. The study shows the need for further improvement of the existing hand hygiene
training programs to address the gaps in knowledge, attitudes and practices. Further, there is a
need to improve the facilities available for hand hygiene and make them readily accessible for
students at their training centers to enable them to engage in good practices which will be
beneficial for them as doctors and nurses in the future.
