Background: The aim of this study was to determine the habit of handwashing among health care workers in the intensive care unit of hospitals' general surgery department.
Methods: Potential handwashing opportunities were detected and observations were recorded. Handwashing habit of health care workers was monitored for over 1710 min., during 30 min. observation periods.
Results: In this study which had 1710 minutes of observation period, the overall habit of handwashing of the medical staff was 23%. Compliance among physicians, nurses and other health care workers were 12%, 34% and 19% respectively (p<0.05).
Conclusion: The handwashing habit of healthcare workers in our unit is unacceptably low. We believe that introduction of social pressure models will help to improve handwashing awareness of the health care worker.