KNOWLEDGE ATTITUDE AND PRACTICE OF THE HAND HYGIENE AMONG HEALTH CARE WORKERS CARING FOR CRITICALLY ILL NEONATES

Background: Critically ill neonates are at the risk of developing wide range of complicated infections due to sub-optimal immunity. Hand hygiene has been proven to an effective barrier in preventing such life threatening conditions. Since an evident poor compliance was observed among the health care providers and there is a need of dynamic approaches to inculcate these trends in health practice to ameliorate the danger of nosocomial infections. Objective: To ascertain the health belief approach regarding implication of hand hygiene and its association with the wellbeing of critically ill neonates. Material and methods: This cross sectional study was conducted in Lahore General Hospital, Lahore Pakistan during March 2022 and July 2022 using convenient sampling method. A total of 120 healthcare workers including doctors, nurses and infection control nurses were approached out of which 100 were enrolled using a self-structured questionnaire after informed written consent. The data and response was recorded and analyzed using SPSS 21. Confidentiality and privacy was ensured at all levels. Results: More than two third (68%) of the respondents agreed that perceived difficulty to comply with the hand hygiene practices was the key barrier in retarding the advent of nosocomial infections in critically ill neonates. Conclusion: This study advocates the time tested fact regarding how the possible innate perception of difficulty in adopting the hand hygiene measures strongly governs the compliance.

Keywords: Hand Hygiene, Neonatal Care, infection Control