Introduction:

Hands constitute an important source of microorganism transmission; thus, this study sought to investigate adherence to hand hygiene by the nursing staff in Pediatric Intensive Care Units.

Materials and Methods:

Descriptive cross-sectional study, conducted in three public general hospitals in the Southern region of Brazil. Data was collected between February and March of 2015, during 10 consecutive and random days, through systematic observation technique. Two hours of effective work of the nursing professionals were observed, as opportunities lost and used for hand hygiene. Data were analyzed through descriptive statistics.

Results:

Forty-two observations were obtained, resulting in 642 opportunities, of which hand hygiene practice was performed in 360 (56%) of the opportunities.

Discussion:

Thus, it is verified that the nursing staff professionals often neglect the hand hygiene practice, which may be related not directly to the lack of knowledge, but to non-adherence of knowledge to the daily practice, in addition to work overload, number of patients under their care, and the procedures performed.

Conclusions:

Adhesion to hand hygiene by the staff investigated was unsatisfactory and technical nursing professionals were less compliant than nurses.

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