Honors Program

Honors in Nursing

Date of Award

12-2013

Thesis Professor(s)

Patricia Moore

Thesis Professor Department

Nursing

Thesis Reader(s)

Audry Greenwell, Lea Carter Florence

Abstract

Compliance with hand hygiene is widely recognized as the most important factor in preventing transmission of infection to patients in healthcare settings (Haas and Larson, 2007). Hand hygiene dramatically decreases the potential pathogens on hands and is considered the first measure for decreasing the risk of transmitting organisms to patients, healthcare professionals, and family members. Noncompliance with hand hygiene practices has been shown to increase healthcare-associated infections, costing hospitals $35.7-$45 billion each year (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2012). Education about hand hygiene starts in school and should transfer into the real world of nursing. The purpose of this research is to determine how student nurses in a baccalaureate nursing program in northeastern Tennessee perceive hand hygiene and the importance of conducting the act of hand washing. Students who do not perceive it as important, or do not have the correct information, are unlikely to use principles of good hand hygiene in their practice. Few studies were found assessing nursing school students’ perception of the importance of hand hygiene.

Document Type

Honors Thesis - Open Access

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

Copyright

Copyright by the authors.

Included in

Nursing Commons

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