Review of literature: Knowledge and practice of standard precautions by nursing student and teaching techniques used in training

•Nursing students’ knowledge and compliance of standard precautions are moderate.•Nursing students have better practices than medical students.•A great heterogeneity in the methodology of the published studies exists.•There are several pedagogical techniques for teaching hygiene in nursing education.•Few pedagogical techniques for teaching hygiene have proven to be effective. Standard precautions (SP) help to combat health care-associated infections. It is of paramount importance that they be taught during nursing studies. The objective of this review of the literature was to determine the level of knowledge and practice of SP and hand hygiene (HH) of nursing students (NSs) and to identify the different pedagogical hygiene techniques applied in nursing training. A review of the relevant literature was carried out according to the PRISMA method between January 2010 and April 2021. Eighty-one articles were selected: 36 studies were dedicated to NSs’ knowledge, 43 to the SP practice of NSs, and 21 to hygiene teaching techniques in nursing training. While NSs knowledge of HH was found to be moderate, their knowledge of SP was moderate or good. Alcohol-based hand rub were little known. SP practice and compliance with SP and HH was moderate. The hygiene training programs set up in view of improving knowledge and practices have applied diversified pedagogical techniques. Multimodal approaches have proposed different associations of pedagogical techniques. As of now, no single teaching methods has been found clearly superior to the others. Enhanced training for nurses by means of new technologies and a combination of different approaches is indispensable in view of improving their levels of knowledge and practice.