Most men do not properly wash their hands after using the toilet

Hands off men's hands: women wash their hands more often and more thoroughly

Thorough hand washing is one of the most important measures to protect yourself from illnesses such as the flu or cold. But especially the strong sex does not take it with the hygiene apparently so exactly. According to a recent study, women wash their hands more often and thoroughly than men.

Many infectious diseases are transmitted through the hands

According to estimates by the World Health Organization (WHO), up to 80 percent of all infectious diseases are transmitted by hand. According to medical experts, the risk of developing gastrointestinal infections, diarrhea, flu or cold can be significantly reduced by proper hand washing. However, many people do not take it with hand hygiene as accurate, as a new study shows. Accordingly, only eight percent wash their hands correctly. Especially men have a lot of catching up to do here.

A recent study has shown that few people wash their hands properly after a visit to the toilet. Especially men have a lot of catching up to do here. (Image: Alexander Raths / fotolia.com)

Thorough hand washing protects against illnesses

Even at a young age children are taught to wash their hands before eating or after playing games or going to the toilet.

It is important that the hands are not only held fast under the tap, but thoroughly cleaned. Because for a good protection against infectious diseases, the hand washing must take place properly and long enough.

From the expert's point of view, 20 to 30 seconds are necessary to rinse off all pathogens. To get a feel for this time, UNICEF Unicef ​​recommends singing the song "Happy Birthday" twice when washing your hands.

In adulthood, many people no longer think about the most important hygiene rules and think that hand washing is a matter of course.

Nevertheless, some of them are a bit negligent, as students of the Faculty of Applied Psychology of the private SRH Hochschule Heidelberg found in an observational study of 1,000 people.

Keep influenza out

Although the flu epidemic rages violently as rarely, but actually it would be easy to keep the pathogens off: "The risk of infection with viruses and bacteria can be reduced by a correctly performed hand hygiene by up to 99.9%," it says in a statement of the private university.

Because about 80 percent of all infectious diseases are transmitted through the hands, with which we touch our face 16 times an hour on average.

In this way, the germs pass through the mouth, nose and eyes through the mucous membranes in our body and develop there for infection.

Toilet visitors watched

Ten psychology students of the SRH University of Heidelberg observed the visitors of several public toilets in and around Heidelberg during their experimental internship.

They looked at 1,000 visitors to the toilet and found out: Around seven percent completely abstained from washing their hands. 27 percent used to wash their hands only with water and around 58 percent used soap and water, but not with the necessary thoroughness.

Only about eight percent cleaned their hands exemplary.

With or without soap?

Like other experts for this purpose recommends the Federal Center for Health Education (BZgA) at least a 20-second cleaning with soap and water, not only the palms, but also the spaces between the fingers.

While it's not true that washing hands without soap is pointless, health experts say it's much more effective if soap is used, as it removes dirt and microbes from the skin better than water alone.

The water temperature is not so important. However, grease and dirt dissolve in warm water a little easier.

Significant difference between the sexes

As was shown in the Heidelberg study, there was also a significant difference between the sexes in the hand washing behavior.

While about eleven percent of the men completely renounced the cleansing ritual, the women only had three percent.

With water and soap, but without taking into account the intensity, 82 percent of the women examined looked after the infection germs.

For the men it was only 51 percent. The hand contact with men thus carries a higher transmission risk. "This difference shocked us," said SRH student Jana Zeeb.

"In Germany alone, the pharmaceutical industry made sales of more than 700 million euros in the year 2016 with cold remedies. Not only the costs for the individual, but also for society and economy are enormous ", explained Prof. Dr. med. Frank Musolesi, head of the observational study.

Also the days of incapacity for work mean loss of production amounting to billions of euros for the German economy.

"Infectious diseases can be effectively and inexpensively avoided by regular hand washing, and this without any side effects," says Musolesi. (Ad)