Knowledge, attitudes and barriers to hands hygiene practice: a case study of Kampala International University medical students

Hand hygiene is the simplest basic method that is considered effective in terms of cost with its importance in preventing transmission of microorganisms and infections. Though this being the case, it has been found to be clumsy and faulty in most healthcare settings.Little has been done on assessing the medical students’ knowledge, beliefs, attitudes and practices and comparisons of these factors between the medical disciplines. This study was conducted to assess the knowledge in medical students, their attitude sand barriers towards hand hygiene practice. A questionnaire on alcohol-based hand rubs and WHO recommendations on hand hygiene was used together with semi-structured interviews for data collection. The valid questionnaires were 392. The respondents comprised of 232 males (59.2%) and 160 females (40.8%) while (30) participated in the interview. The overall mean score for individual knowledge was 49.4%.More than a half of the students (203) scored 54.5% and above. Most of the respondents had good attitudes on hand hygiene in most of the aspects that were assessed i.e.93.9% of the respondents felt that they should practice effective hand hygiene and 92.3% felt that hand hygiene should be a personal habit. Several challenges that limit the practice were highlighted with unavailability of materials for carrying out hand hygiene i.e. lack of running water, soaps and hand sanitizers taking the lead. The researcher concluded that more sensitization was needed to increase awareness and knowledge of the practice in medical students.