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ALBANIAN MEDICAL JOURNAL SUPPLEMENTLevel of hand hygiene in health care services inVloraAgron Bashllari 1 , Marinela Zejno 2 , Elona Agalliu 11Epidemiology Service, Public Health Directorate, Vlora, Albania;2Vlora Regional Hospital.Aim: Hand hygiene is an important element of thequality of health care services. Our aim was todescribe the level of hand hygiene in Vlora RegionalHospital.Methods: This was a descriptive study undertakenbetween December 2012 and January 2013 includinga representative sample of the personnel (n=200).A standardized WHO-recommended questionnairewas administered to all participants. Epi-Info wasused for data analysis.Results:· 97% (95%CI=94.6%-99.3%) of participantsreported there is non-stop running (safe) water inthe hospital.· Conversely, 93.5% (95%CI=90.0%-96.8%) ofindividuals reported that there were no papernapkins of single usage.· 69.3% (95%CI=63.0%-75.6%) of intervieweesreported that the institution has no real plan forimproving the infrastructure for hand hygiene.· 90% (95%CI=85.0%-94.0%) of individualsreported that there is no monitoring mechanism ofthe compliance of hand hygiene within the hospital.· Only 6% (95% CI 3.3% -9.9%) of the interviewedpersonnel reported washing always theirhands before visiting/treating patients.· The hand hygiene compliance rate for the item:before visiting/ treating the patient was 3%.Conclusions: Our findings point to the urgent needfor implementation of the program for handhygiene, according to WHO guidelines. Furthermore,there is a need for prioritization of possibleinterventions concerning: infrastructure; continuoustraining of personnel; promotional campaigns;evaluation and feedback of information on handhygiene; establishment of a positive institutionalclimate about the issue of hand hygiene by engagingthe leading staff of the hospital.Keywords: hand hygiene, health careservices, V lora.100 ALBANIAN MEDICAL JOURNAL SUPPLEMENT