Evaluation of student's hand washing knowledge, practices and skills in a college setting

Background: Hand washing is an effective way to prevent infections and diseases. This study aimed to evaluate the student's social hand washing knowledge, practices, skills and related factors. Materials and method: All existing 3^rd year students in the institute were eligible for the study. Participants filled in a questionnaire. The questionnaire tested the students social hand washing knowledge (questions 7), practices (questions 15), and skills (questions 9) which was prepared using previous studies. Participants received 1 point for each correctly answered question concerning their knowledge, practice and skill in respect of investigated issue. Results: In all 100 students that have participated in the study majority of the students wash their hand 6to 10 times (45.3%). Students who skipped the hand wash feel that there is no need of hand wash (24.7%). Most of them feel hot water is better for hand washing (76.7%). Around 95 to 99% of the participants wash their hand before and after food. 98% of participants wash their hands after using the rest rooms and 25.3% of them wash their hand even before using rest room. 76.7% of participants wash their hand after reaching home. Conclusion: The present study stresses on necessity of stressing the hand hygiene protocols in tutorials and clinical settings. It recommends the need for campus based health education programs, development of handhygiene promotion programs for the dental student.