Assessing Hand Hygiene Compliance and Knowledge There is a reason why meticulous hand hygiene is a standard of care for all patients: it saves lives. Hand hygiene is a fundamental task that has many benefits. It is common knowledge that hand hygiene is a “good” habit. Knowing this information, we now need to explore the extent to which nurses and other healthcare professionals adhere to standards of appropriate and effective hand hygiene practices. Literature Review The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines hand hygiene as "a general term that applies to routine hand washing, antiseptic hand washing, antiseptic hand sanitizer, or surgical hand antisepsis. (Center for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2013) The idea of ​​hand washing has been around for centuries. In the mid-1800s, Ignaz Semmelweis established that nosocomial diseases were transmitted by the hands of health care workers. After observing doctors and health workers in obstetric settings and studying mortality rates, Semmelweis recommended washing hands with a chlorinated lime solution before coming into contact with each patient. Following the implementation of Semmelweis's recommendations, mortality rates associated with childbirth fell from seven percent to three percent. Although Semmelweis's observations and recommendations were important, his colleagues did not adopt them. The 1980s were a crucial time in health care regarding hand hygiene. It was at this time that the first national hand hygiene guidelines were published in the 1980s. In 1995 and 1996, the CDC/Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC) in the United States suggested d 'use either an antimicrobial soap or a waterless antiseptic agent...... middle of article ...... final research article had a limitation because only a small number of students were studied in a single university. It is therefore unclear whether the information can be applied generally. The strength, however, lies in the detailed information obtained from the data due to the distribution of questions. The data made it possible to analyze factors such as profession, age and various other aspects. This type of collection provided extensive student data (Thea et al., 2011).Conclusions and Future StudiesIt is clear from this research that the topic of hand hygiene is particularly relevant to nursing. Nursing has the most hands-on, face-to-face interactions with patients. Since nurses come into contact with multiple patients multiple times a day, it is essential that they have competent hand hygiene knowledge to prevent the spread of infections and diseases..