Abstract

Background: Medical Students are a part of the hospital team and can improve the compliance of infection control practices, thus reducing health care-associated infections.
Aims: This study aims to study the knowledge of hand hygiene among medical students at Arabian Gulf University (AGU).
Methods: This cross-sectional study targeted students of both gender from year 1 to year 6 during the academic year 2019-2020 at AGU. World Health Organization questionnaire was adopted and converted to an online version. It was sent to medical students to participate anonymously.
Results: A total of 159 medical students were included; 82 (52.2%) students from basic years (year 1-4) responded to the study versus 76 (47.8%) from clinical years (year 5-6). Both clinical and basic years students have moderate knowledge (>50%) as 17 out of 25 answers (including the clusters) were correct with a percentage of 50% and above.
Conclusion: Although generally there are good knowledge and practice among the medical students in this study, proper curriculum and training sessions should be conducted continuously with performance feedback to ensure proper hand hygiene practices and thus protect both patients and health care workers from acquiring infections in the hospital setting.

Key words: Hand hygiene, Knowledge, practice, medical student, Bahrain.