Objectives The objective of this study was to determine the awareness among healthcare professionals regarding
stethoscopes as a source of
nosocomial infections, their cleaning practices in this regard before or after examination, and to find out about the existence of any guidelines and accountability criteria issued by the hospitals in this regard. Methodology A descriptive cross-sectional study of 243 healthcare professionals using non-probability convenience sampling was done to include consultants, residents, final-year medical students, and nursing staff and excluding medical students from pre-clinical years as well as doctors of those departments with infrequent use of a
stethoscope. The study was conducted for a period of nine months at tertiary health care facilities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad. A self-administered structured questionnaire was used for data collection. Results Participants from both genders included 54 participants (22.2%) from the final year, 48 (19.8%) house officers, 106 (43.6%) postgraduate trainees, nine (3.7%) specialists, and 26 (10.7%) nurses. A total of 210 (86.4%) were aware of
stethoscopes as a source of
nosocomial infections. Among participants, 23 (9.5%) cleaned their
stethoscope per patient, 50 (20.6%) did it daily, 48 (19.8%) did it weekly, 41 (16.9%) did it monthly, 12 (4.9%) participants cleaned it six-monthly while 69 (28.4%) respondents had never cleaned their
stethoscope. Almost 127 participants (52.3%) used alcohol wipes to clean their
stethoscopes, 11 (4.5%) used a wet cloth, six (2.5%) used tissue paper. Sixty-one (24.9%) agreed that the hospital issued protocols for the decontamination of
stethoscopes while 189 (77.8%) did not. A total of 241 (99.2%) believed that there were no accountability criteria set for the assessment of the cleanliness of
stethoscopes in their hospitals. Conclusion A majority of the participants were aware of
stethoscopes being a source of
nosocomial infections and believed in cleaning
stethoscopes regularly. However, a majority of the participants believed that their hospital did not issue any protocols for the decontamination of
stethoscopes. Further research can expand our recommendations.