Background. Adherence to hygiene guidelines is of utmost importance for healthcare professionals. The aim of this study was to evaluate the knowledge on and the adherence to hygiene guidelines among medical students in Austria. Additionally, a possible difference between female and male students was investigated. Methods. An open paper-based survey among third-year medical students at the Medical University of Graz was conducted. The questionnaire consisted of 20 single-choice questions covering compliance with basic hygiene standards, self-rated knowledge of hygiene guidelines, and satisfaction with current hygiene education, equipment, and quality standards. Results. Of 192 medical students, 70% judged their knowledge of hygiene standards as “excellent” or “good”; however, only 49% reported adherence to hygiene guidelines and only 43% performed hygienic hand disinfection according to WHO guidelines. Of the respondents, 79% voted for a mandatory course on hygiene standards in medical education. No significant gender differences were observed. Conclusion. While the knowledge on hygiene guidelines appears to be good among medical students, adherence is limited and requires improvement. The need for an optimum education in hygiene is high. 1. Introduction Healthcare-associated infections pose a continuing threat for mortality and morbidity among hospitalized patients [1]. Hospital-acquired infections mainly draw attention because of the growing awareness that most of them are preventable [2]. Evidence suggests that proper hand hygiene practice is regarded as the single most effective and simple inexpensive strategy for reducing the prevalence of hospital-acquired infections [1, 3–7]. However, adherence to good hand hygiene practice remains consistently poor in the clinical setting [7]. The hygiene adherence by healthcare professionals has been described previously [2, 7], whereas compliance of medical students has rarely been examined [8–11]. Assessment and raising awareness of hygiene standards during undergraduate education may affect the behavior of graduate students upon entering professional life and contribute to the reduction of nosocomial infection rates. Thus, the present study was performed to examine the knowledge on and the adherence to hygiene guidelines among medical students after completion of the third year of medical studies, with special emphasis on gender differences. 2. Materials and Methods An open paper-based questionnaire was distributed among 200 randomly selected medical students at the Medical University of Graz, Austria. This
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