Two out of three med-school students don’t know when to clean their hands on the job, according to new research published in the American Journal of Infection Control.

Researchers asked 85 third-year medical students at Hannover Medical School in Germany of seven different scenarios, which would require hand hygiene.

Only 33 percent identified that five of the seven scenarios required hand-washing:
1. Before contact with a patient
2. Before preparing intravenous fluids
3. After removing gloves
4. After contact with the patient’s bed
5. After contact with vomit

The students involved in the study believed their hand hygiene to be better than nurses’ – but previous studies have shown that nursing students have a higher rate of compliance with hand hygiene standards.

“There is no doubt that we need to improve the overall attitude toward the use of alcohol-based hand run in hospitals,” researchers noted.