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Workplace culture impacts on hand hygiene compliance
31st of July 2015Better access to hand hygiene facilities and more hand washing 'cues' could help to improve hand hygiene in healthcare, according to researchers.
And increased knowledge about hand hygiene procedures plus a good example set by senior staff could also make a difference.
A team in Ireland examined various worldwide studies into hand hygiene to ascertain a list of reasons for poor compliance in hospitals. According to lead researcher Maura Smiddy, motivational factors for hand washing include social influences and self-protection.
Healthcare workers were found to follow hand hygiene protocol more closely when there was a personal risk involved, such as when they were handling bodily fluids or treating a patient with MRSA, for example.
Junior medical staff and medical and nursing students also tended to follow the example of senior physicians when it came to hand hygiene. And hand hygiene 'cues' such as the provision of hand sanitiser dispensers had a positive impact on compliance, the researchers noted. However healthcare professionals were less likely to wash their hands in life-threatening situations for fear of delaying their response to an urgent call for treatment.
"Information regarding compliance was considered beneficial in several of the studies," said the researchers. "Auditing was seen as an effective tool to encourage and monitor hand hygiene compliance - and being informed about audit results was important to healthcare workers."
Improved knowledge of hand hygiene procedures and convenient access to supplies at point of care were also linked to compliance. "Understaffing is linked to suboptimal hand hygiene compliance and an increase in healthcare-associated infections," it was claimed in the study.