Journal of Preventive Medicine

The hand hygiene practice of Hong Kong people: A quantitative study

9^th Edition of International Conference on Preventive Medicine & Public Health
July 16-17, 2018 London, UK

Wong Sze Wing Julia

Tung Wah College, Hong Kong

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Prev Med

DOI: 10.21767/2572-5483-C1-003

Abstract

Introduction: In 2003, the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) took 286 lives of Hong Kong people and eight of them were healthcare professionals. Since then, the Hong Kong government has established the Centre for Health Protection and has been promoting hand hygiene to Hong Kong people proactively over the last decade. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has also been advocating the importance of hand hygiene because it is an important measure to prevent the outbreak of communicable diseases in the community. Given that there are limited studies exploring the quality of hand washing among the general public as well as their hand hygiene practice in terms of duration of hand washing and common hand washing moments, these became the aims and objectives of this study. Methodology: This was a quantitative study which was conducted in Jan 2018. A black box with a 20W ultra-violet light was used to assess the remaining fluorescent stains on both hands of participants after hand washing in the community and the stains were recorded in accordance with the anatomical structure of the hand. Results: A total of 190 Hong Kong adults (M=94, F=96) were recruited. Among the eight hand hygiene moments, the majority of the participants washed their hands after handling vomitus or fecal matter (87%) and after using the toilet (73%). However, fewer participants did so before touching their eyes, nose and mouth (12%) and after touching public installations or equipment (17%). The mean of the duration of hand washing was 36.54 seconds (SD=18.57) and 165 (86.8%) participants performed hand washing for more than 20 seconds. The top three common missed areas of hand washing were the fingertips (48.1%), medial (30.5%), and back of the palm (28%). Multiple logistic regression showed that participants who have tertiary or above education tend to have one hand hygiene moment more than those who have below tertiary education (p=0.000, B=1.003). Thus, participants aged 30 tended to have five missed areas more than those aged below 30 (p=0.001, B=4.933).

Biography

Wong Sze Wing Julia is an EdD candidate of the University of Liverpool. She is a Registered Nurse as well as a Senior Lecturer of the School of Nursing in Tung Wah College, Hong Kong. She is also a fellow member of the Hong Kong College of Education and Research in Nursing. She has published a few papers in reputed journals and has been serving as a Reviewer of reputed journals. Her research interest includes Public Health, Quality of Life, Nursing Education.

E-mail: juliawong@twc.edu.hk