On October 15, the Global Handwashing Day was observed. Hand hygiene is one of the core components of infection prevention and control. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends a six-step technique for effective hand hygiene:
- Rub both hands palm to palm
- Rub the dorsum (back) of each hand with the palm of the other hand, with fingers interlaced
- Rub palm to palm, with fingers interlaced
- Rub the dorsums of fingers against the opposite palm, with fingers interlocked
- Rub one thumb by palm of the other hand, and rub the other thumb
- Rub the tips of your fingers
Ideally, this six-step hand hygiene procedure should take 20–30 seconds in order to ensure effective removal of transient microorganisms.
According to a study published in the US Government’s National Library of Medicine website, the duration that was associated with the best effect was four seconds for step 1, six seconds for step 2, two seconds for step 3, four seconds for step 4, and five seconds for step 5, and 6 respectively.
However, only 14.4% of people perform these six steps correctly, according to the study. Most people (85.2%) perform step 1 (rub palm to palm) completely correctly, whereas step 3 (rub between fingers) was the most frequently (16.8%) ignored step. 39.1% of the people perform step 4 (rub dorsum of fingers) in a completely wrong way, and 12.1% performed step 2 (dorsum of each hand) partially correctly.
After hand washing, palms of both hands were found to be mostly clean, but that wasn’t the case for the dorsum, or the back of the hand. The areas that were left most unclean were fingertips, fingernails, finger webs and thumbs.
So, now that you have been made aware of this, remember to wash your hands properly and patiently the next time. Your very health depends on it!
