European Journal of Preventive Medicine 2014; 2(1): 16-19 Published online February 20, 2014 (http://www.sciencepublishinggroup.com/j/ejpm) doi: 10.11648/j.ejpm.20140201.13 Hand washing study in health care workers of a tertiary teaching hospital in Iran Ali Majidpour 1, * , Mohamad Hussein Shari’at 2 1 Infectious Diseases Department of Rasoul Akram Hospital, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran 2 Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran Email address: alimajidpour@yahoo.com (A. Majidpour) To cite this article: Ali Majidpour, Mohamad Hussein Shari’at. Hand Washing Study in Health Care Workers of a Tertiary Teaching Hospital in Iran. European Journal of Preventive Medicine. Vol. 2, No. 1, 2014, pp. 16-19. doi: 10.11648/j.ejpm.20140201.13 Abstract: Hospital acquired infections are a worldwide problem and cross contamination transmission causes 40% of them while many of these infections are transmitted by healthcare workers. This study was designed to survey the prevalence of hand washing in health care workers (HCWs) of Rasoul Akram hospital, a tertiary level teaching hospital of Iran University of Medical Sciences (IUMS). This descriptive cross-sectional study was done on 350 healthcare workers, such as medical doctors, nurses, nurse' aide and other HCWs of the hospital. Questionnaire of hand washing made by WHO was used to collect data, and SPSS18 was used to data analysis. P value less than 0.05 was assumed significant. Oral consent was taken from participants before filling the questionnaire. Forty one percent were male, and average age of participants was 32.3 year (SD = 6.8). Sixty five percent of the participants were routinely washing their hands. One hundred and twenty seven cases had been participated in hand washing workshop and 82.5% of them used hand washing routinely which was significantly more than nonparticipating (p<0.001). Almost 48% of males and 76.8% of females did hand washing, which indicates a significant difference between males and females. Nurses had highest rate of hand washing(76.1%) and physicians had lowest(47.9%) and this was significant(p<0.001). Sixty three percent of HCWs of internal medicine division , 50.8% of surgical ward, 69.5% of Emergency department, 87.5% of pediatric diseases section and 78.1% of gynecology section were doing routine hand washing. Keywords: Hand Hygiene, Hand Washing, Hospital Acquired Infection, HAI, HCW 1. Introduction Nosocomial infections (NI) are a worldwide problem with the prevalence of at least 5% in developed countries till 25% in developing world (1). It is estimated that cross- section transmission causes 40% of hospital acquired infections (2). Most of these infections are transmitted by contaminated hands of health care workers (3). Epidemic study of NI clarified that many of these infections are related to not correct using of methods of decontaminations or not enough knowledge about these methods. With considering that hands of HCWs have great role in transmission of infectious agents and contaminated fomites from one patient to another, and from personnel to the patients, hand washing is the most important method in prevention of transmission .For this reason, it is recommended that hand washing must be emphasized routinely (4). Although hand washing is one of the best ways of prevention of nosocomial infections, but many of HCWs don't attend to the methods of hand sanitation and in practice, the time and frequency of hand washing is much less than it is expected (5).Other studies show that in many of health centers, tendency of HCWs to wash their hands is unexpectedly low (6-7). Samadipour A. et al showed that hand washing rate was 34.4% in internal medicine department, 21.3% in surgery ward, 16.7% in ICU unit and it was 16.6% between physicians (8). Rumgay S. et al reported that hand washing rate was 12.8% in physicians and 65.2 % in nursing group (9). In study of Pittet D. et al average compliance of hand washing was 48% and noncompliance was the highest among physicians (10) .The aim of this study is to know the rate and compliance of hand washing among health care workers of a tertiary teaching hospital in Tehran, Iran.