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Infection Prevention And Control: Monitoring And Evaluation Of Hand Hygiene Knowledge, Attitudes And Practices Of 03 Categories Of Students At The Felix Houphouet-Boigny De Cocody University (Abidjan - Cote D'ivoire)

Ngbesso Jean-Paul Ngbesso

  Introduction: Hygiene promotion refers to differentstrategiesthataim to improve the hygiene practices of a group of people in order to prevent the spread of disease Objective: The knowledge, attitudes and practices in hand hygiene of students at the Félix HOUPHOUËTBOIGNY University in Cocody need to beimproved as the coverage of good hand hygiene practice isdeclining. Hand hygiene promotion was conducted to address the lack of knowledge of 03 categories of students at the University Félix HOUPHOUËT-BOIGNY de Cocody. Methodology and results: A baseline survey was conducted among 989 second and third year university students from 03 streams. Structured questionnaires, group discussions, pre-tests and post-tests wereused to collect data. R software (Versions R*64.3.6.0 and Ri3864.0.0) was used to analyse the data. Students' knowledge, attitudes and practices were assessed by calculating scores. On the basis of score compliance, there was a considerable improvement in the knowledge, attitudes and practice of students in all three student categories. Specifically, there were statistically significant differences between the knowledge, attitudes and practicesscores of the different groups (p-value ≤ 0.05). On the other hand, a significant difference was obtained between the knowledge, attitudes and practices levels of the baseline survey and the second assessment among biology students (?2= 5.19; p-value = 0.022). Conclusion and potential application of findings: Hand hygiene knowledge, attitudes, and practices improved significantly in all 03 student categories. Transfer of hygiene information and skills to the community was alsonoted. Hand hygiene education could be effectively delivered in the supportive environment provided by the university using affordable and readily available resources. Further efforts should be made to strengthen hygiene education for students in developing countries. Keywords: Interventions, Knowledge, Attitudes, Practices, Hygiene, Hands, University, Côte d'Ivoire