Journal of Education and Practice www.iiste.org ISSN 2222-1735 (Paper) ISSN 2222-288X (Online) Vol.5, No.29, 2014 73 Perceptions of Medical students toward nosocomial infections at college of medicine-Babylon Kareem Abed Mobashr MBChB/ Diploma in Medical Education Assistant professor.Mohammed Asaad Ibrahim MBChB,FICMS/CM .Al-kindy college of medicine Assistant professor. Wijdan Akram Hussein MBCh.B..FICMS/CM, .Al-kindy college of medicine Abstract Background: Health care Acquired Infections are a major cause of increasing morbidity and mortality around the world. Nosocomial infection contracted during medical treatment is a huge problem in hospitals. Up to 5,000 patients die every year from nosocomial infections. Up to 30% are preventable through simple infection control procedures. Infections increase costs, waiting lists, and harm-wide. The aims of this research are (1) to assess the knowledge, attitudes and behaviors of medical students toward nosocomial infections. (2) to explore the source of information from which the medical students received their knowledge during college's study about nosocomial infections Subject and Methods: it is a descriptive cross-sectional study, which carried on one hundred and six final year students using non random sampling technique, there is no inclusion or exclusion criteria. This study was done in Al- Hilla College of Medicine/ University of Babylon and conducted during the period from 1 st of January to 30 th of October 2013, by using questionnaire through direct interview. Statistical analysis: Minitab version 18 software was used for data entry and analysis. P value ≤ 0.05 considered as significant. Results: The study showed that the overall average of the medical students' knowledge about HCAIs was (68.34%), however, the knowledge regarding specific areas was low, particularly concerning the risk of transmission of infection to the hospital personnel was(41.5%) and for the stethoscope was (43.86%) as a potential source of infections. In general, their behaviors to reduce the risk of infections were (69.38%), whereas, (49.06%) of them wearing protective materials when contact with patient. Generally the attitudes of medical students were positive (68.68%). Females had better attitudes than males (48.87%), (19.81%) concerning the perceived risk of acquiring a HAIs. Advising information about some items of HCAIs was generally (50, 65%). About safety (IV) inserted devices (52.84%) and only (22.16 %) have acceptable advised about Stethoscope cleaning. Conclusions and recommendations: this study concluded that the students have adequate knowledge, positive attitudes and acceptable behaviors to reduce nosocomial infections; however, advising information about some items of HCAIs was generally acceptable. These findings emphasize the need of stressing on education about this sort of infections in the health care curricula. Key word: nosocomial infection, sixth year, perception. 1.Introduction 1.1 Health care-associated infections have long been recognized as crucial factors bothering the quality and outcomes of health care delivery. "An infection is considered nosocomial if it becomes evident 48 hours or more after hospital admission or within 30 days of discharge following inpatient care" [1] . Health care-associated infections (HAIs) or nosocomial infections were not present or incubating at the time of admission, comprise a significant burden of illness [2] . HAIs are a major cause of increasing morbidity and mortality in around the World as well as US. The mortality rates of Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) are varying from 5% to 35% that make HAIs is among the ten top leading cause of death. Nosocomial infection is an identified public health problem world-wide with a prevalence rate of 3.0-20.7% and an incidence rate of 5-10 % [3, 4] .