Effect of a multifaceted intervention on hand hygiene compliance among healthcare workers at the medicine wards and icu in a tertiary hospital setting

Abstract

Background. While hand hygiene is recognized as the cornerstone for reducing risk for nosocomial infectons, compliance in our insttuton remains low. Previously identfied barriers include poor access to hand hygiene products, lack of reminders, and poor knowledge on indicatons. Methods. At the medical wards and ICU of a tertary hospital, a group of medical students, residents, and nurses was exposed to interventons addressing the identfied barriers. Alcohol handrub was provided at each bedside, visual reminders were placed at critcal locatons, and commonly missed opportunites were reinforced at the start of the study. Hand hygiene compliance was covertly evaluated after two weeks and compared against that of an unexposed group. Results. 664 and 727 hand hygiene opportunites were observed in the unexposed and exposed groups, respectvely. Compliance was higher in the exposed group (32.60% vs. 16.26%, p <0.05), which by subset analysis was consistent for the different healthcare worker designatons and locatons evaluated. Nurses had the highest compliance rate in both groups. Conclusions. These results suggest the efficacy of the employed interventons in improving hand hygiene compliance in this setng. Hand hygiene opportunites identfied to be most frequently missed in this observaton can guide future interventon efforts in our insttuton.