COVID-19 Pandemic: A Narrative Review of Factors Impacting Hand Hygiene Practices among Healthcare Workers in India

Introduction: Hand hygiene (HH) is one of the most important parts of infection control practices and is the single most important activity that prevents the transmission of microorganisms. And hand washing is known to be the first line of defence against COVID-19 and its spread during the current pandemic. This narrative review highlights the factors impacting hand hygiene practises among health care professionals and also provides strategies to improvise them during the COVID-19 pandemic. Material and methods: The articles were searched from 2015 to 2020 that were available in electronic databases such as Pubmed, Embase, Medline, Google Scholar and Cochraine Library. The search included key words: hand hygiene, health care professionals, hand hygiene compliance, hand washing and India. Results: A total of 31 articles were utilized for the final review. Overall there was low to moderate knowledge on hand hygiene yet low compliance. The barriers for good hand hygiene practices were low awareness, lack of training, limited resources and the infrastructure was not adequate. Conclusions: Hand washing is one of the preventive measures in decreasing hospital associated infections and spread of COVID-19. Evidence suggests that factors impacting good hand hygiene practices needs to be addressed in the COVID-19 era. Facing the pandemic is challenging but these challenges can be converted to opportunities to improve and maintain good HH practices Keyword: COVID-19, Hand Hygiene, Hand Washing, Healthcare Workers, India.