Abreham Iyasu, Moges Ayele and Bayisa Abdissa
Background: The concept of hand hygiene is defined differently by different bodies. Among all, the definition given by Center for Disease Control was found appropriate and relevant to this study. Accordingly, hygiene is the practice of keeping personal and environmental hygiene or cleanness with the intention of preventing disease and illness. Hand hygiene is not a recent practice; rather it is as old as a man. Objectives: To assess hand hygiene knowledge, perception and practice among women of “Kirkos” locality in Addis Ababa and to identify the factors associated with the existing hand hygiene practice. Methods: A community based cross-sectional study was set out to conduct household survey. Three hundred eighty five women were selected using a multi-stage random sampling technique, which involved the selection of woreda, kebele and finally the households. Fully structured questionnaire was used to collect information on participants’ knowledge, perception and practice of hand washing. Results: Overall, majority (66.8%) of the respondents had lower level of knowledge of hand washing. Regarding, the hand washing practice, majority (61.3%) of the participants don’t frequently wash their hands at critical times. Likewise, participants don’t have the habit of drying hands, in which case majority (more than 70%) of the respondents were identified not to dry their hands at all. Education, perceived motivation and perceived beliefs were identified to be strongly associated with hand hygiene practice (AOR=2.47621, 95% CI; 3062, 4.6939), (AOR=2.0506, 95% CI; 1.2648, 3.3244), and (AOR=1.7916, 95% CI; 1.0553, 3.0415). Conclusion: Smaller proportion of the women practiced proper hand washing. Furthermore, a smaller proportion of women were identified to have knowledge of proper hand washing.
