Development and appraisal of a hand hygiene teaching approach for medical students: a qualitative study

Poor hand hygiene (HH) practices among medical students have previously been attributed to students not being exposed to sufficient teaching materials during their training.

To develop and evaluate a teaching module directed at improving the knowledge and attitudes of undergraduate medical students towards HH.

The HH teaching module was designed based on educational materials used by the World Health Organization and other patient safety organisations. The development was also informed by the findings from two previous studies including qualitative interviews with staff and students and a survey of Australian medical schools. In-depth group interviews were undertaken with 24 undergraduate medical students.

Favourable feedback was received from the interviewed medical students towards the developed scenario-based learning activity; however, the group interview activity was not received well by students. They suggested that the HH teaching activities should be compulsory and not optional for medical students. In order to reinforce good HH practices and to improve knowledge around HH and healthcare-associated infections, they felt that the activities should be repeated during each phase of their degree.

There is a need to change the approach to training in education, particularly to engage students in topics such as HH which are often seen as unimportant.