Has the COVID 19 Virus Changed Adherence to Hand Washing among Healthcare Workers?

Abstract

The aim of the study was to assess adherence to hand washing by healthcare workers (HCWs) and its variations over time in hospital wards. We wanted to check whether the pandemic had changed the behavior of HCWs. The study was conducted between 1 January 2015, and 31 December 2020. The HCWs were observed to assess their compliance with the Five Moments for Hand Hygiene. We described the percentage of adherence to World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines stratified per year, per specialty areas, per different types of HCWs. We also observed the use of gloves. Descriptive data were reported as frequencies and percentages. We observed 13,494 hand hygiene opportunities. The majority of observations concerned nurses who were confirmed as the category most frequently involved with patients. Hospital’s global adherence to WHO guidelines did not change in the last six years. During the pandemic, the rate of adherence to the procedure increased significantly only in Intensive Care Unit (ICU). In 2020, the use of gloves increased in pre-patient contact. The hand-washing permanent monitoring confirmed that it is very difficult to obtain the respect of correct hand hygiene in all opportunities, despite the ongoing pandemic and the fear of contagion.

The trajectory of COVID-19 pandemic and handwashing adherence: findings from 14 countries

“…There is a growing number of studies attempting to explain handwashing behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic pointing towards the predicting role of various individual-level variables (e.g., social-cognitive or sociodemographic) [ 3 , 7 – 11 ] and environmental-level factors (e.g., characteristics of the setting) [ 14 ]. However, these studies did not consider that the trajectory of COVID-19 pandemic may be related to fluctuations in handwashing adherence [ 3 – 5 , 7 – 11 , 14 , 15 , 37 ]. The present study represents a novel contribution to the literature by demonstrating that the indicators of the trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic are related to the engagement in the health-protective behavior of handwashing.…”

“…It is possible that 8 specific situations listed in the questionnaire constituted memory aides to assist recall strategy and engage autobiographical memory [ 39 ]. The assessment alternative to self-reports (e.g., an observation conducted by trained personnel [ 14 ]) may be applied in one setting, but it is impossible to apply when adherence across various settings is assessed.…”

“…There is a growing number of studies attempting to explain handwashing behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic pointing towards the predicting role of various individual-level variables (e.g., social-cognitive or sociodemographic) [3,[7][8][9][10][11] and environmental-level factors (e.g., characteristics of the setting) [14]. However, these Participants were asked to indicate if during the previous week they have usually washed their hands (for at least 20 s, all surfaces of the hands) in the respective situation (with responses ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 4 = strongly agree).…”

“…Research investigating determinants of health-protective behaviors, such as face mask wearing and handwashing, has treated the COVID-19 pandemic as a binary variable, comparing behaviors ‘during’ the pandemic to those enacted ‘before’ [ 12 – 14 ] or only investigating the associations between individual-level predictors and protective behaviors ‘during’ the pandemic [ 3 – 11 , 15 , 16 ]. As such, the potential predictive role of COVID-19 pandemic trajectory has not been considered.…”

Compared hand hygiene compliance among healthcare providers before and after the COVID-19 pandemic: A rapid review and meta-analysis

“…Since the only 5 retrieved literatures reported the HHC comparison before and after the pandemic, the comparison data before COVID-19 were referred from the HHC regarded meta-analysis studies published from January 1, 2015 to December 31, 2019. 27 , 29 , 33 , 34 , 35 …”