The objective of this study was to identify nursing care workers knowledge and implementation regarding the time to conduct hand hygiene in hospitals for the elderly, and was to use the results of the study as basic data to develop educational programs to improve nursing care workers knowledge and implementation regarding the time to conduct hand hygiene.
Data was collected from February 20th to March 20th, 2017, and the survey was conducted after explaining the purpose and the necessity of this study to those who agree to participate voluntarily in this study among nurses working at 9 hospitals for the elderly that are registered as medical care institution by national health insurance law in D city and C province.
Hand hygiene scenarios for users developed by WHO(2009b) were used to measure knowledge and implementation regarding the time to conduct hand hygiene, and they were modified to adjust to hospitals for the elderly.
SPSS/Win 22.0 program was employed to analyze the data. Demographic characteristics of respondents were presented as frequency and percentage, and knowledge and implementation regarding the time to conduct hand hygiene in terms of respondents’ demographic characteristics were analyzed by mean, standard deviation, t-test, one-way ANOVA, and Scheffё test as post-hoc analysis. Pearson''s Correlation Coefficient of respondents’ knowledge and implementation regarding the time to conduct hand hygiene was produced by correlation analysis.

The results of this study are as follows.

First. Percentage of correct answers and percentage of implementation regarding hand hygiene showed higher before conducting rather than after conducting in all scenarios. From all scenarios, the percentage of correct answers showed 71.5% and the percentage of implementation showed 68.3% in the time that is necessary to conduct hand hygiene, however, the percentage of correct answers showed 27.5% and the percentage of implementation showed 26.3% in the time that is not necessary to conduct hand hygiene.

Second. From all scenarios, percentage of correct answers and percentage of implementation regarding the times to conduct hand hygiene are as follows; percentage of correct answers of 69.4% and percentage of implementation of 64.8% ‘before cleanness/asepsis treatment’, percentage of correct answers of 72.9% and percentage of implementation of 67.6% ‘before contacting patient’, percentage of correct answers of 78.9% and percentage of implementation of 74.6% ‘after contacting patient’s surroundings’, percentage of correct answers of 81.7% and percentage of implementation of 81.0% ‘ after contacting patient’, percentage of correct answers of 95.8% and percentage of implementation of 95.8% ‘after body fluid exposure risk’. That is, ‘after body fluid exposure risk’ showed the highest percentage of correct answers and percentage of implementation, and ‘before cleanness/asepsis treatment’ showed the lowest percentage of correct answers and percentage of implementation.

Third. In the difference of knowledge and implementation regarding the time to conduct hand hygiene in terms of respondents’ demographic characteristics, knowledge regarding the time to conduct hand hygiene in terms of demographic characteristics showed statistically significant differences in clinical career(F=5.44, p=.001) and recognition for existence of infection controller or infection control office(t=2.09 p=.038). Also, implementation showed statistically significant differences in clinical career(F=3.29, p=.023), recognition for existence of infection controller or infection control office(t=2.16, p=.033), and training experience of hand hygiene(number of times/year) (F=3.43, p=.035).

Fourth. When nurses working at hospitals for the elderly had more knowledge regarding the time to conduct hand hygiene, implementation regarding the time to conduct hand hygiene showed higher(r=.90, p<.001).

The results suggest to develop and to apply educational programs for hand hygiene in order to improve nursing care workers knowledge and implementation regarding the time to conduct hand hygiene in hospitals for the elderly.