Evaluation of hand washing situations of health care workers working in surgical intensive care unit

Hand washing situations are important and effective way to control and prevent hospital infections. Thus, this research was planned as a descriptive type of study to determine the hand washing situations of the health care workers working in the intensive care unit. 29 health care workers working in intensive care units (12 physicians and 17 nurses) were included in the study. As data collection tool, it was used a questionnaire form, aim to determine hand washing observation form. The analysis of the data was evaluated using SPSS 16.00. It was determined that health care workers constituting the study group were 58.6% male, 37.9% of them were between 28-32 years of age, and 94.1% of them have a bachelor's degree. It was observed that the total working time of the health professionals in the profession was 62.12 ± 18.6 months in the nurse group and 86.0 ± 55.77 months in the physician group. It was determined that 65.5% of the participants in the survey hand washing to protect themselves and other patients from infections, 75.9% of them used water and soap while hand washing, and 51.7% of them knew wrongly the hand washing time in the unit. Compared with results of observations concerning the evaluating situations that require hand washing of physicians and nurses in the unit, there was a statistically significant difference between the two groups (p<0.05). Besides, compared with observations concerning the situations that require hand washing of nurses and physicians on the first entrance to the unit, there was no statistically significant difference between the groups (p>0.05). In the light of these results, we think that hand hygiene training, monitoring compliance and using visual reminder training materials such as brochure banners on the subject will provide important positively contributions to the healthcare workers' hand washing situation.