Women in Germany wash their hands more thoroughly than men after going to the toilet, although both genders have room for improvement.
While some 11 per cent of the men observed for the study by the private SRH University in the south-western city of Heidelberg did not wash their hands at all, only three per cent of women did not.
Water and soap were used by 82 per cent of women, but only 51 per cent of men.
“For the analysis 10 psychology students observed the fingers of a total of 1,000 visitors to public toilets over one month,’’ the Head of the study, Frank Musolesi, said on Tuesday.
“The students from the faculty of applied psychology stood as unobtrusively as possible in the washrooms of fast food restaurants and motorway service stations as well as in railway stations and in the university canteen,” Musolesi said.
An earlier study by the Federal Office for Health Education (BZgA) from 2013 found that 95 per cent of men asked said they “almost always’’ washed their hands after going to the toilet, compared to 98 per cent of the women asked.
The BZgA recommends that people wash their hands for at least 20 seconds using soap and water after they visit the toilet, not forgetting the areas between the fingers.
According to the Heidelberg study, only eight per cent of the men and women surveyed washed their hands according to these recommendations.
Seven per cent of people did not wash their hands, 27 per cent washed only using water and 58 per cent used soap and water, but not according to government recommendations. (dpa/NAN)