Assessment of the level of knowledge and awareness of dental health care workers about hand Hygiene -A questionnaire based study

Background: Hand hygiene is considered as an important measure to prevent cross-transmission of microorganisms and to reduce the incidence of health care-associated infections. Published literature reveals poor compliance with standard precautions among healthcare workers and students worldwide. Knowledge and competence in hygienic practices should be strongly established at the start of a nursing and a dental career. In this regard, many surveys were conducted to assess infection control and hand hygiene knowledge among nursing and medical healthcare workers by administration of anonymous questionnaires. But there is no such study conducted to assess the awareness, knowledge and attitude of dental healthcare workers. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 26 nurses, 73 post-graduate students and 51 teaching faculty at Manipal College of Dental Sciences, Mangalore, Manipal University. Knowledge and awareness were assessed using a questionnaire derived from the WHO questionnaire for hand hygiene and the Hand Hygiene Questionnaire developed for VA-3M Six Sigma Project.The p-value less than 0.05 were considered significant. Results: All participants were found to have good amount of hand hygiene knowledge. The post-graduate students were found to have better knowledge than the teaching faculty and the nurses.