Journal of

Background: consideration of hand hygiene can reduce health care infections effectively. Prevalence of poor hand hygiene consideration will lead to enhance morbidity, mortality and costs. This study aimed at assessing hand hygiene process of nurses by clinical audit method in a selected general hospital in Tabriz.

Materials and Methods: this study was an interventional one using clinical audit method which  was conducted during seven months in surgery, internal, child and women units in a selected general hospital in Tabriz in 2013-2014. The study was carried out on nurses in all shifts (morning, evening and night). Study instrument were monitoring performance checklist and hand washing observation. Checklist was developed by WHO and Ministry of Health guideline.

Results: the total number of situation in pre-intervention was 252 which increased to 336 by the interventions implementation. The overall rate of compatibility of hand hygiene process with standards was 59.94% in pre-intervention which promoted to 80.56% after intervention implementation.

Conclusion: This study reveals using clinical audit is a method to improve quality of hand hygiene process.