Abstract

Introduction: One of the new methods of teaching is peer teaching, but its efficacy has gained ‎little attention in nursing education especially in clinical skills. Therefore, this study examined ‎the effect of near-peer teaching on learning hand hygiene skills among nursing students. ‎Methods: In this quasi-experimental study, 80 first grade nursing were selected and randomly ‎assigned to two groups: ʺinstructor teachingʺ and ʺnear-peer teachingʺ. The data collection tool ‎was a hand hygiene skill checklist which was completed based on observations before and after ‎training. Intervention group and control group were practiced by peers and academic member, ‎respectively. Evaluation was done by one academic member who had no information about ‎students groups through the same checklist. Data were analyzed with conduct independent ‎sample t- test and paired sample t-test. Confidence interval 95% (α= 0.05) was considered as ‎significant level.‎ Finding: The findings shows that, No significant difference was found between two groups ‎regarding the scores of hand hygiene skills before training (p = 0.66). After training, the ‎average score of hand hygiene skills was 10.8 ± 0.99 inʺ instructor group ʺ and 11.6 ± 0.53 in ‎the ʺnear- peer groupʺ, and there was a significant difference between the groups (p <0.01).‎ Conclusion The improvement of nursing students’ hand hygiene skill in theʺ near-peer groupʺ is ‎better than the ʺinstructor teaching groupʺ and it is suggested to use it as a method for teaching ‎students practical skills‎‎‎.