Improving children’s and their visitors’ hand hygiene compliance

Abstract

Background: Numerous interventions have tried to improve healthcare workers’ hand hygiene compliance. However, little attention has been paid to children’s and their visitors’ compliance. Aim: To test whether interactive educational interventions increase children’s and visitors’ compliance with hand hygiene. Methods: This was a cluster randomised study of hand hygiene compliance before and after the introduction of educational interventions. Observations were compared for different moments of hygiene and times of the day. Qualitative data in the form of questionnaire-based structured interviews were obtained. Findings: Hand hygiene compliance increased by 24.4% ( P < 0.001) following the educational interventions, with children’s compliance reaching 40.8% and visitors’ being 50.8%. Compliance varied depending on which of the five moments of hygiene was observed ( P < 0.001), with the highest compliance being ‘after body fluid exposure’ (72.7%). Responses from questionnaires showed educational interventions raised awareness of the importance of hand hygiene (69%, 57%) compared to those who had not experienced the educational intervention (50%). Conclusion: Educational interventions may result in a significant increase in children’s and visitors’ hand hygiene ( P < 0.001).

An Evaluation of the Hand Hygiene Behaviour and Compliance of the General Public When Using Public Restrooms in Northern Ireland (NI) during the Initial Weeks of the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic

“…Despite adequate hand hygiene behaviour and compliance being documented as being the best self-protective measure against the spread of COVID-19 and other communicable diseases, the findings of this study are highly indicative that most members of the general public during the initial weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic in NI were washing their hands inadequately. The level of adequate hand hygiene compliance found in this study was less than other previously conducted studies during disease outbreaks [ 19 , 22 , 23 ]. This implies that while disease outbreaks like COVID-19 usually generate an improvement in overall intention to practice hand hygiene compliance compared to pre-pandemic circumstances, there still remained a large proportion of the general public who did not wash their hands adequately enough even during an ongoing disease pandemic.…”

“…Additionally, most research on hand hygiene uses self-reporting methods such as questionnaires and surveys to determine hand hygiene behaviour and compliance [ 13 , 19 ]. These are typically not as reliable as observational methods [ 17 , 18 ], because observational data is quantitative, and therefore there it minimises the opportunity for self-reporting bias [ 13 , 14 ].…”

“…Hand hygiene compliance rates for children are also generally poor, with van Beeck et al [ 16 ] reporting an overall compliance rate of 31% in their study. In another study by Lary et al [ 19 ], children’s baseline hand hygiene compliance was established as being around 19%. Gender differences in some previous studies also found that females generally have better hand hygiene compliance rates compared to males [ 20 , 21 ].…”

Effect of Hand Hygiene Intervention in Community Kindergartens: A Quasi-Experimental Study

“…Our findings demonstrated an increase in teachers’ perceived disease susceptibility, a significant decrease in the total bacterial colonization of the children’s hands, and a significant increase in the number of hand sanitizers, faucets, and paper towel devices for children and teachers in the HH environment, respectively. Health education is a simple and low-cost intervention that effectively increases the awareness of the importance of HH and improves the correctness and compliance with HH [ 23 ]. Compared with other studies on HH interventions for non-health workers [ 24 , 25 ], we first informed teachers regarding common childhood infectious diseases before the HH lecture.…”

Kinderbesuche auf Intensivstationen: Was ist aus Perspektive der Krankenhaushygiene zu beachten?

“…Schulungsmaterialien mit Flyern, Postern, Videos, technischer Unterstützung oder kindgerechten Spielen sollten vor dem Klinikbesuch zur Verfügung gestellt werden (Beispiel: https://www.e-bug.eu/de-de) und können die Compliance von Mitarbeitenden und Besuchenden verbessern [37,38,39].…”