Koreans wash hands for just 14 seconds after using restroom, only half use soap: survey
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14% of respondents skip hand-washing, survey funds
Only about half of Korean adults wash their hands with soap after using the restroom, a survey showed, while the average time spent washing hands fell far short of the recommended 30 seconds.
The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) on Thursday announced the findings of its survey on infection prevention practices for the first half of 2026, conducted jointly with the National Medical Center.
The survey observed the hand-washing behavior of 4,560 adults at 120 public restrooms nationwide from May 28 to June 30. Exit interviews were also conducted with 1,800 of the participants.
The survey found that 86 percent of people washed their hands after using the restroom, up 1.9 percentage points from 84.1 percent last year.
The proportion who washed their hands with soap rose 1.7 percentage points from a year earlier to 46.7 percent. Another 39.3 percent washed their hands with water only, while the remaining 14 percent did not wash their hands at all after using the restroom.
The amount of time people spent washing their hands was also notably short. The average total hand-washing time after using the restroom was 13.9 seconds, while the time spent rubbing hands with soap and lather was just 5.8 seconds.
Those figures increased by 1.7 seconds and 1 second, respectively, from last year but remained well below the recommended 30 seconds for proper hand washing. In the exit survey, however, 51.2 percent of respondents said they "usually practice proper hand washing."
Proper hand washing is defined as washing all surfaces of the hands with soap under running water for at least 30 seconds.
The rate of proper hand washing has remained at just above 10 percent over the past three years, standing at 10.5 percent in 2024, 10.3 percent in 2025 and 11.4 percent in the first half of this year.
The KDCA said it plans to combine the findings with those from its ongoing survey on infection prevention practices for the second half of 2026 and announce the final results in December.
This article from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Times, was translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times.