Objective? To develop a Hand Hygiene Awareness Scale (HHAS) for clinical nurses in China, test its reliability and validity, and explore its structural model. Methods? A preliminary draft of the HHAS was formed by literature review, semi-structured qualitative interview and expert group focus interview. A total of 268 clinical nurses were investigated by equal proportion stratified sampling to test their reliability and validity. Results? HHAS consisted of three dimensions with 16 construct factors. The Cronbach's α of the total scale was 0.862, and the Cronbach's α of dimensions were from 0.885 to 0.926. The reliability was 0.886. The Pearsons correlation coefficient of each dimension were from 0.528 to 0.683 (P＜ 0.01). Three common factors were extracted by exploratory factor analysis, and the cumulative contribution rate was 50.238%. The confirmatory factor analysis indicated χ2/df=215.421/132, GFI=0.934, RMSEA=0.050, AGFI=0.982, NFI=0.960, CFI=0.962. Conclusions? The HHAS has good reliability and validity, and it is suitable for evaluating the clinical nurses' hand hygiene awareness.