Is there a relationship between nurses’ hand hygiene beliefs, practices and ethical sensitivity?

Applied Nursing Research, cilt.78, sa.151813, ss.1-6, 2024 (Hakemli Dergi)

Background: Hand hygiene is the most important way to prevent health care-associated infections. It is important

for all nurses that come in physical contact with patients the most to follow hand hygiene rules.

Aim: This study aimed to determine the relationship between nurses’ hand hygiene beliefs and practices and their

ethical sensitivity.

Method: This descriptive and cross-sectional study was conducted with nurses working in internal medicine,

surgery and intensive care clinics of a university hospital between June and August 2022. A total of 350 nurses

participated in the study. A Personal Information Form, the Ethical Sensitivity Questionnaire (ESQ), the Hand

Hygiene Practice Inventory (HHPI), and the Hand Hygiene Beliefs Scale (HHBS) were used for data collection.

Results: Findings support that nurses have moderate ethical sensitivity (88.36 ± 26.33), good hand hygiene

beliefs (85.60 ± 9.21) and practice (66.14 ± 5.90). Despite there being no statistical significance in evaluating

the relationship between hand hygiene practice and ethical sensitivity (p = 0.253, r = − 0.061), there was a

statically significant inverse relationship between hand hygiene beliefs and ethical sensitivity (p = 0.001, r =

− 0.172). The hand hygiene compliance score of the nurses who received only ethics training after nursing school

(p = 0.000); the hand hygiene belief (p = 0.011) and hand hygiene practice (p = 0.007) scores of those who

received both ethics and hand hygiene training were higher.

Conclusions: It can be said that the ethical sensitivity of nurses does not affect their hand hygiene practices, and

the hand hygiene and ethics education they receive after school education increases their hand hygiene beliefs

and practices.