At the beginning of the event, the students asked the participants to disinfect their hands according to their knowledge and to check their work under a UV lamp. During this activity, they carefully monitored their technique and offered constructive corrections if necessary. "However, we were surprised by the relatively large number of people whose hand hygiene was not ideal, even though we often see teaching of correct execution technique in our faculty. This finding confirmed us in the importance of further education and awareness in the field of hygiene and prevention," says Bohdana Rezková from the Department of Public Health of the Faculty of Medicine.
Curious attitudes and answering quiz questions made the event overall more enjoyable. The interest of the participants was also great, especially from the foreign students, especially in the new knowledge and willingness to participate in the activities. "The greatest joy was seen in the brightened eyes when the participants discovered that we had prepared gifts for them in the form of Hartmann disinfectants and souvenirs from the MU Faculty of Medicine. We would like to thank MUNI and Hartmann for donating prizes for the World Hand Hygiene Day event and thank everyone for their participation," said student Dominika Karasová.
Hand Hygiene Day at the Faculty of Medicine of MU was traditionally organised by the Department of Public Health in cooperation with students from IFMSA for the fourth time in order to remind the importance of this preventive method not only in everyday life, but especially in healthcare. Contaminated hands are the most common means of transmission of healthcare-associated infections. The students of the Faculty of Medicine at the station were thus able to test their own knowledge in this area, but also to use it to educate others.
Teaching hand hygiene has long been part of the hygiene and epidemiology courses taught to all future health professionals at the Department of Public Health. It focuses primarily on the correct moments for performing hand hygiene when treating or examining a patient. The UV lamp, which is commonly used in teaching, combined with a specially adapted disinfectant to practice the correct hand disinfection technique, was thus available for all those interested to try.
"Last year, students of the 3rd year of General Medicine in the course Protection and Promotion of Health II had the opportunity to try out the device, which, based on a scan of the hands after disinfection, evaluates the percentage of hand surface coverage with disinfectant and, in case of detected deficiencies, also recommends steps for improvement. Thus, 250 students out of 349 enrolled in the course taught in both Czech and English tested their hand disinfection technique. 57 of them failed the rigorous evaluation. The feedback will allow them to work on the shortcomings in a targeted manner," Bohdana Rezková comments on the results in the report below.
Fixation of correct habits and understanding of the importance of hand hygiene for patient safety is a basic prerequisite for successful performance of their future profession. But clean hands are important in protecting everyone from infection, which is why these prevention activities are so important.
