Abstract

Objective: The aim of the study was to determine the knowledge and behavior of university students in nursing and other departments related to social handwashing.

Method: Interrogation is descriptive. The study's universe was formed by students studying at a university in Istanbul. The sample consisted of 185 students in the nursing department and 177 students in the other departments (N = 362) who agreed to participate in the study. The data was collected by a survey form prepared by researchers. The data obtained were evaluated by mean, percentile and chi-square test.

Findings: The average age of the students is 20.07 ± 1.79. It was determined that the majority (79,8%) were girls, 51,1% were nursing students (40,9%) and the students were staying in the country (61,9%). In answer to the question, "What is your daily hand wash count?" 19,5% of the nursing students and 17,5% of the students in the other sections gave the answer "11 times and over"; In response to the question "How long are you washing your hands?", 60% of the nursing students and 0.6% of the students in the other sections gave "more than 15 seconds" In answer to "Are you hands dry?" (59.5%) of the nursing students and 9.6% of the other students answered "always the solution" (p <0,05), and these findings were statistically significant in favor of the nursing students.

Conclusion: These results indicate that nursing students are more conscious about hand washing, but both groups have found training needs to improve hand washing behavior.