Abstract: OBJECTIVE To explore the influence of hand hygiene of health care workers on nosocomial infections in children. METHODS A total of 1 600 children who were hospitalized the pediatrics department from Jan 2013 to Jan 2014 were recruited as the study objects. The hand hygiene interventions were taken to reduce contact infections, the incidence of nosocomial infections and hand hygiene compliance of the health care workers were compared before and after the interventions, the distribution of pathogens causing the nosocomial infections was observed, and the influence of hand hygiene of health care workers on the nosocomial infections was explored. RESULTS The hand hygiene compliance of the health care workers was remarkably improved before the implementation of aseptic operation, before or after contact with the children, after contact with the children's blood, or after contact with surroundings of the children, and there was significant difference before and after the interventions were taken (P<0.05). The nosocomial infections occurred in 16 children, with the infection rate 1.00%; the infection rate was 1.50% before the intervention, 0.89% during the intervention, 0.59% after the intervention, and there was significant difference in the incidence of nosocomial infections before and after the intervention (P<0.05). Totally 16 strains of pathogens were isolated from the 8 children with nosocomial infections before the intervention; 10 strains of pathogens were isolated from the 5 children with nosocomial infections during the intervention; 7 strains of pathogens were isolated from the 3 children with nosocomial infections after the intervention. Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus hemolyticus were dominant among the isolated pathogens. CONCLUSION The hand hygiene of health care workers has direct impact on the nosocomial infections in the pediatrics department, and the hand hygiene intervention can effectively reduce the incidence of nosocomial infections.