Hand Hygiene of Nurses and Patient Safety

Abstract

Introduction: Hand hygiene is one of the most effective measures to prevent hospital acquired infections and improve patient safety. Aim:To state how important is for nurses to get hand hygiene in their everyday practice in order to be safe for their patients.Method: A review of articles with key words "hand, hygiene, hand, safety, nurse, and guideline". Results:Infectious diseases are a particular risk to the very young, the elderly, those with a pre-existing disease, and people with a compromised immune system. Nurses need to wash their hands not only to prevent them from getting sick, but to protect their patients from acquiring health-care associated infections. Hand Hygiene of Nurses and Patient SafetyPublication History:Received: January 05, 2016 Accepted: January 11, 2017 Published: January 13, 2017 Keywords:Hand hygiene, Hand contamination, Health careassociated infection Commentary Open AccessHand hygiene noncompliance is a major cause of nosocomial infection. Good hand hygiene plays a major role in reducing and eliminating the spread of germs and infections from patient-topatient. Research has shown that while healthcare workers state largely favorable attitudes towards hand-cleaning practices, observed compliance rates are below 30% [1]. Reasons given by professionals for the lack of compliance to hand-cleaning practices highlights several explanatory factors, including: work conditions (lack oftime), infrastructures (lack of equipment), training (inadequate), human environment (superiors, colleagues, unscrupulouspatients) and the health of medical and nursing staff (skin irritations caused by frequent hand-cleaning). Infection prevention and infection control have always been serious topics, but this is particularly true today, with the spread of the swine fluand associated infections [2].Good personal hygiene plays a major part in reducing and eliminating the spread of germs and infections from person-toperson. It also helps in reducing the spread of infectious illnesses, including colds, flu and other upper respiratory illnesses. A big part of personal hygiene is hand hygiene and incorporating safety measures in developing habits that will stave off illnesses can help to further reduce the spread of germs and infections [3]. Ensuring that today's medical professionals make hand washing a priority is essential. Simple activity of frequent hand-washing has the potential to save more lives than any single vaccine or medical intervention. It is one of the most effective and inexpensive ways to prevent diarrheal diseases and pneumonia, which cause more than 3.5 million deaths worldwide in children under the age of 5 every year. Although people around the world clean their hands with water, very few use soap to wash their hands [4].Hand-to-hand contact can spread mild conditions, such as the common cold, but also more severe or life-threatening diseases. Infectious diseases are a particular risk to the very young, the elderly, those with a pre-existing disease, and people with a compromised immun...

Determinants of latent tuberculosis infection among nurses at public health centers in Indonesia

“…Handwashing before and after contact with patients with TB or TB specimens has been regularly practiced by up to more than 60% of the nurses. This result reflects one of the mandatory protocols in nursing care implementation (Malliarou et al, 2013 ). Therefore, every nursing action provided to patients should always begin and end with handwashing.…”

History of Hand Hygiene Increases Undergraduate Nursing Students’ Positive Attitude Toward Hand Hygiene Practice

“…It was known that the formation of a positive attitude increases after studying history since it provides a better understanding. 2,7 Thus, the history of hand hygiene helps students better understand the effect of hygiene in preventing the transmission of pathogenic microorganisms between individuals. It provides a clear picture of the effects of contaminated hands on patients 2,19 and makes sense 3 .…”

“…The nurses typically have several contacts with patients requiring hand hygiene in between, which may make a third of the time spent just washing hands. 7 Such frequent hand hygiene can also irritate the skin, especially using hot water, which may cause dermatitis and other skin problems [8][9][10] outpacing the capacity and resources of health systems worldwide. A therapeutic vaccine is not yet on the rise, and preventive measures are the current approach to restraint the transmission of cases.…”

The importance of hand hygiene in health care settings Dimitrios Alefragkis

“…Step 1 involves the application of hand hygiene before contact with the patient. It is considered very important to apply it for the protection from pathogenic germs which are transmitted by hands, such as handshaking, helping the patient to be moved, and by measuring the pressure [20][21][22] .…”

“…Step 2 reports the application of hand hygiene before any clean or sterile procedure, aiming at protecting the patient from the transfer of microbes that colonize both the health professional and the patient himself. Examples include catheter placement, intravenous, subcutaneous drug infusion, aspiration of respiratory secretions and others [17,21,22] .…”