An Observational Study of Hand Hygiene Compliance of Surgical Healthcare Workers in a Nigerian Teaching Hospital

Patients sometimes contract healthcare associated infections (HCAI) which are unrelated to their primary reasons for hospital admission (Devnani et al., 2011). The frequency of HCAI, especially in high-riskpatients in developing countries is 2 to 3 times greaterthan in developed countries (Allegranzi et al., 2017). Higher prevalenceof HCAIin developing countries hasbeen credited to a range of factors (e.g.,reuse of instruments, scarcity of basic facilities) including low compliance to infection control measures (Rosenthal, 2011).Surgical site infections (SSI) are the most investigated and most recurrent type of HCAI in developing countries, affecting up to one-third of surgical patients (Allegranzi et al., 2017). SSI are a significant cause of post-surgical morbidity and mortality (Chu et al., 2015).In Nigeria, a systematic review and meta-analysis estimated SSI cumulative incidence rate at 14.5% (Olowo-Okere et al., 2019)