Abstract
Handwashing is an important method for the prevention of nosocomial infection,
especially in light of the fact that all health personnel, i.e., doctors, nurses, and others,
have contact with patientsû blood, excreta and secretions. The objectives of this cross-sectional study were to determine the rate of handwashing
practiced, the accuracy of handwashing and average times spent in handwashing among
health-care personnel in Khuankalong Hospital. The study was carried out in the period
from April 1 to 30, 2006. Participant observation with a check-list form was used for data
collection on 43 subjects, comprising physicians, nurses, dental health workers and laboratory
technicians, using purposive sampling. Descriptive statistics were used for data
analysis.
The results of the study disclosed that, from 118 observations, the handwashing and
accuracy rates of health-care personnel were 88.98 percent and 17.14 percent, respectively.
The handwashing rates among physicians, nurses, technical nurses, dental health workers
and laboratory technicians were 43.75 percent, 100 percent, 100 percent, 100 percent
and 50 percent, respectively. It was evident that the health-care personnel of Khuankalong
Hospital had a very high rate of inaccuracy in handwashing (82.86%) while their
handwashing rate was only 88.98 percent. Thus, it is mandatory that all health-care personnel
in this hospital should be encouraged to attend the intensive training course focusing
on handwashing in order to reduce the occurrence of nosocomial infection.
