Implementation of Proper Hand Hygiene among Microbiological Laboratory Workers Respectively to WHO Guidelines

Background: Hand hygiene has a fundamental role in the prevention of one of the most challenging problems in the management of modern hospitals: nosocomial infections and occupational diseases.

Aim: This survey presents the experience of laboratorians in the Microbiology Department in the Clinical Center in Skopje in promoting proper hand hygiene by participating in a training course and implementation of WHO guidelines among laboratory staff.

Material and Methods: The group of 36 Health Care Workers (HCW) has been divided in to seven different groups, based on their specific work in the Institute of Microbiology. The investigation was conducted in two phases: phase-1 was before the training course and phase-2 immediately after taking the training course. During phase-2, hand samples were taken with the technique of the moist swab on the left hand and the fingertips touch method on the right hand.

Results: It was found that 17% of the cultures from the left hand detected pathogenic bacteria and 39% on the samples taken from the right one (there is significant difference (p = 0.041).

Conclusion: The Touch Method appears to be the more sensitive method than swabbing the critical areas of the palms. It is also evident (significant) that awareness of the problem of the staff, obtain some changes in their attitude and practice.
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Citation: Popovska K, Zdravkovska M, Blazevska B, Icev K, Eftimovski G. Implementation of Proper Hand Hygiene among Microbiological Laboratory Workers Respectively to WHO Guidelines. Maced J Med Sci. 2012 Jul 31; 5(2):147-151. http://dx.doi.org/10.3889/MJMS.1957-5773.2012.0219.
Key words: WHO; guidelines; education; hands; hygiene.
Correspondence: Prof. Dr. Katja Popovska. Institute for Microbiology and Parasitology, Faculty of Medicine, University “Ss Cyril and Methodius”, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia. E-Mail: katja.popovska@t-home.mk
Received: 13-Apr-2011; Revised: 24-Jan-2012; Accepted: 30-Jan-2012; Online first: 19-May-2012
Copyright: © 2012 Popovska K. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
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