Introduction:

The hands of professionals are the most common vehicle for the transmission of microorganisms from one patient to another. In this setting, hand hygiene is considered a very relevant primary measure for controlling healthcare-associated infections.

Objective:

To verify adherence to hand hygiene practices among healthcare professionals in the intensive care unit of a university hospital.

Methods:

Descriptive and cross-sectional study, with a quantitative approach, carried out in 2020 in the intensive care unit of a Brazilian university hospital. The study population consisted of 121 health professionals. Data collection was done by consulting the database available under the committee for hospital infection control at the institutional level. The statistical analysis was done with the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), version 22, using simple descriptive statistics.

Results:

The sanitation adherence rate was over 78.04%. Internal Medicine residents had the highest depression rate, accounting for 96.72%. On the other hand, physicians had only 57.29% of their care with sanitation. These events indicate that healthcare professionals in the intensive care unit may be concerned about the risk of procedures being performed due to exposure to body fluids and contaminated areas.

Conclusions:

Unsatisfactory adherence to sanitation was found in all professional categories during the research demonstration period.

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