Introduction:

Infections associated with healthcare are among the most frequent causes of morbidity and mortality in hospitalized patients. Handwashing seems like a simple issue in healthcare; however, not always does it work as it should.

Objective:

To assess the effectiveness of an educational program in washing for the health personnel.

Methods:

Quasiexperimental study carried out in three stages (diagnosis, intervention, and evaluation) at Lucía Íñiguez Hospital in Holguín, during 2016, with 50 randomly selected workers. The information was obtained through an observation guide and a questionnaire, before and after the educational program was applied. Descriptive analysis of the information was carried out, which included absolute frequencies and percentages for qualitative variables; means, medians, standard deviations with confidence intervals (95%) for quantitative variables. To study the effectiveness of the educational program, the results obtained before and after its application were compared using the paired data Wilcoxon test. Significance levels below 0.05 were assessed.

Results:

There was a predominance of the nursing staff (70%). After applying the educational program, all evaluated parameters on handwashing improved and the number of workers in whom some type of germ was isolated in the cultures carried out was reduced.

Conclusions:

Handwashing among the workers, after the actions carried out, varied favorably. The time used increased, although the established one was not always reached. Germs decreased, behaviors were modified, and the risk of infections decreased.

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