Impact of hand washing training on pharmacy students; a quasi-experimental study.

Abstract

Background: Globally, poor hand washing practices
have led to a remarkable increase in the rate of
infection and spread of infectious diseases. Hands are
the main route of germ transmission during medical
management. Hence, hand washing is an effective
measure to prevent the transmission of infectious
diseases in healthcare.

Objective: The study assessed the impact of hand
washing training on pharmacy students’ knowledge
of hand washing.

Methods: The study employed quasi-experimental
study design. Pre-test data collection was carried out
with a structured questionnaire to assess the
student’s knowledge of hand washing technique at
baseline. This was followed by an educational
workshop on proper hand washing technique and
post-test data collection using the same
questionnaire. All the students (299) who gave their
informed consent participated in the study. Mean
score of individual response was computed for the
different sections of the questionnaire. Data analysis
was performed using SPSS version 22 computer
software. Statistical analysis was done using Paired ttest.
A value of p<0.05 was considered significant.

Results: Out of the 299 students that indicated
willingness to participate in the study, only 284
completed the post-test questionnaire. The baseline
results revealed that majority of the respondents
have good general knowledge on proper hand
washing technique based on cutoff value of >4.
However, the educational workshop had significant
impact on the students’ hand washing technique in
all the three domains assessed with p-values of 0.000
for each domain.

Conclusion: This study suggests that handwashing
training had a positive impact on the students’
handwashing knowledge.