Objective To analyze the characteristics of hand hygiene (HH) compliance of staff in medical institutions (MIs) during the epidemic period of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), and put forward evidence-based intervention policies for improving HH compliance. Methods Relevant literatures on HH compliance of staff in MIs during the epidemic period of COVID-19 were retrieved from PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wanfang Data, VIP and China Biology Medicine disc (CBMdisc) in January 2020-October 2021, two researchers independently screened the literature, extracted data and evaluated the quality, Meta-analysis was conducted with DerSimonian and Laird models. Results A total of 10 literatures on HH compliance involving 2 377 staff in MIs were included in this study. The overall HH compliance during the COVID-19 epidemic period was 74% (95%CI: 68%-79%). Subgroup analysis results showed HH compliance rates of staff of different professions in hospitals from high to low were nurses, doctors and other employees, which were 80% (95%CI: 74%-87%), 76% (95%CI: 71%-81%) and 70% (95%CI: 62%-77%) respectively. Staff in MIs had the highest HH compliance (91%, 95%CI: 88%-94%) after contact with patient body fluid, while the lowest HH compliance (68%, 95%CI: 62%-74%) before contact with patient. Conclusion During the epidemic period of COVID-19, HH compliance of staff in MIs has been greatly improved. Auxiliary personnel are the key personnel to improve HH compliance, before contacting patients is the key moment of HH compliance intervention.