Abstract

Background: Hand hygiene is closely associated with infection control practices. Improvement of hand hygiene, aimed to minimize nosocomial infection, is a high priority of the World Health Organization (WHO). Objectives: The current study aimed to explore Hand-Washing Compliance (HWC) rates and influencing factors. Materials and Methods: Participants of the study were nurses, physicians, secretaries, and hospital care staff of Najmieh Subspecialty Hospital, Tehran, Iran. The Subjects understudy included 127 (90.7) females and 13 (9.3) males. Simple random sampling was used to select the participants. Both descriptive (frequency and percentage) and inferential statistics (Chi-square test) functions of SPSS version 18 were used to analyze the data. Results: The overall rate of HWC was 36. The minimum and maximum HWC rates were when entering and leaving the wards (17.2) and (82.1), respectively. According to the results of the study, there was a significant relationship between education, working shift, and HWC rate. No significant relationship was observed between gender, age, experience, and HWC. Conclusions: According to the findings of the current study, training programs are recommended to be planned with the focus on improving HWC. © 2014, Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine Research Center; Published by Kowsar.