Clinical audit of hand hygiene process of nurses in one public hospital in Tabriz

Effective hand hygiene can reduce health care infections. The prevalence of poor hand hygiene compliance will lead to increase morbidity and mortality and costs.

the aim of this paper was assessment of hand hygiene process of nurses by clinical audit methods in a selected public hospital in Tabriz.

the type of study was interventional by using clinical audit that was conducted for 7 months in surgery, internal, children and women units in a selected public hospital in Tabriz in 1392-1393.. Study was conducted in two phases: pre-intervention and post- intervention. The target sample was nurses on all shifts (morning, evening, night). Methods and tools of study were monitoring performance checklist and hand washing observation.checklist was developed by WHO guideline and nation guideline.

the total number of opportunity of pre-intervention was 252 that it increased to 336 opportunities by the implementation of interventions. The overall rate of compliance with the hand hygiene standards in pre-intervention was 59.94%and after the implementation of interventions improved to 80.56%.

this study shows that promotion and training programs have important role to improving hand hygiene standards.