personal protective equipment and hand hygiene status in health care workers during the covid-19 pandemic

Background: the covid-19 pandemic presents a major risk to health care workers (hcws), which necessitates protective strategies. personal protective equipment (ppe) and hand hygiene (hh) could prevent covid-19 infections in healthcare facilities. our study aimed to determine the level of ppe proper use among hcws of mashhad educational hospitals as well as their level of hh.methods: this cross-sectional study was conducted from january 1st, 2021 to january 1st, 2022 in three educational hospitals in mashhad. a standard checklist was arranged based on the who guidelines and was filled out by the supervisors. data were analyzed using spss v23.0.results: the total hcws included in this study were 246, including 154 women. the majority of the participating staff were nurses 135 (54.9%). the most common ppe was the n95 mask (71.1%). one hundred and eighty-four people (46.3%) washed their hands through the standard method, and there was no significant difference between men and women. also, the level of correct ppes donning and doffing was 42.2% and 28.4%; respectively. ppe donning was not significantly different between men and women. however, we found a significant difference in doffing ppe.conclusion: it became evident that hcws paid moderate attention to ppe and hh, demanding hcws training to prevent infectious diseases such as the covid-19.