Evaluation of nursing students’ preparation for their first contact with the patient in terms of hand hygiene

Introduction
Proper hand hygiene is an essential skill which allows nursing staff to provide health services of good quality.

Aim of the study
The subject of the study was the knowledge of hand hygiene procedures among Polish students of nursing who were starting their internship in health care centers.

Material and methods
The study was carried out in June 2017 with the application of a self-designed questionnaire. A group of 322 nursing students who completed their first year of Bachelor of Arts (BA) studies participated in the research which was carried out in four medical schools provid-ing education to nurses and situated in the south of Poland.

Results
As many as 22 of nursing students after their first year of vocational education could not correctly identify any moment of ‘5 moments for hand hygiene’, 29 of students managed to name only one moment, 23 – three moments, 11 – four moments and only 3 succeeded in identifying all five moments. Only 32 of the respondents knew that HH should be performed before clean/aseptic procedures, 23 were aware that it should be performed before touching a patient and the same percentage saw such a need after touching a patient, 14 knew that HH was necessary after body fluid exposure and only 7 claimed hand hygiene should be performed after touching patient surroundings. The level of nursing students’ knowledge varied between particular medical schools taking part in the study (p < 0.001). Only in 13 of cases students’ knowledge of ‘5 moments for hand hygiene’ was checked by an academic teacher before they started their first internship.

Conclusions
As far as ‘5 moments for hand hygiene’ are concerned, deficient knowledge and skills were observed among nursing students during their first internship. The curriculum for the first year of nursing studies seems to be lacking in proper education towards prevention of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) by means of hand hygiene procedures. What was also detected was a low level of academic nursing teachers’ control concerning ‘5 moments for hand hygiene’.