Intensive care physicians’ and nurses’ perception that hand hygiene prevents pathogen transmission: Belief strength and associations with other cognitive factors

Abstract

Besides habituation, conscious decision-making remains important for healthcare workers' hand hygiene compliance. This study compared 307 physicians and 348 nurses in intensive care at a German university medical centre regarding their belief that hand disinfection prevents pathogen transmission. Physicians perceived less risk reduction ( p < 0.001; variance explained: 4%), a comparison outscored only by lower self-rated guideline knowledge (8%). In both groups, the transmission-preventive belief was associated with high response efficacy, behavioural intention and self-efficacy, but not with self-rated knowledge. Consistent with the Health Action Process Approach, hand hygiene interventions targeting risk reduction beliefs may promote high motivation, but not action control.

Hand(y) Hygiene Insights: Applying Three Theoretical Models to Investigate Hospital Patients’ and Visitors’ Hand Hygiene Behavior

“…For the four scales (HAPA Visitors : risk perception likelihood; TDF Patients : beliefs about capabilities; TDF Visitors : motivation and goals; and TDF Visitors : environmental context) that did not meet a Cronbach's alpha of at least .60, single items representing the concept the best were included in the model. Measuring perceived risk likelihood with a single item is consistent with some other published research (42,67).…”

“…The paper did not include the pre-intentional HAPA variables (risk-perception, outcome expectancies, and task self-e cacy) in the regression model. Unfortunately, a second study out of the project, which looked at the pre-intentional variables, did not report correlations with self-reported hand hygiene behavior (42). Combined with the published PSYGIENE data, we can see action control to be the only factor that is consistently associated with hand hygiene behavior (or intention) across all target groups.…”

“…Unfortunately, it is not known how the entire model predicted healthcare workers' behavior, but several ndings were published. First, a strong belief among staff members that hand hygiene prevents pathogen transmission, was associated with high self-e cacy, high positive outcome expectations, and a strong intention to perform hand hygiene (42). Social resources in the form of cooperation at the ward, maintenance self-e cacy, and action control were signi cant predictors for self-reported hand hygiene compliance among physicians.…”

Promoting Hand Hygiene Compliance: PSYGIENE

“…It is thus in line not only with the call for wellgrounded, behavioral science-based promotion of hand hygiene (27,30,31,34,37,39,40), but also with the call for standardized description of complex behavioral interventions by using the BCT taxonomy (22). At the same time, besides lower hand hygiene compliance rates, physicians' less favorable starting conditions, as indicated by a pessimistic trend regarding hygiene in the form of lower scores on the psychological HAPA variables (28,29), show that physicians should be a particular target group for future research.…”

Psychologie der Händehygiene-Compliance: Von der Motivation zum Verhalten

“…▪ wenn es sich dabei lediglich um eine Unterbrechung eines Patientenkontakts handelt [41]. ▪ wenn dies etwas Zeit braucht [32]. ▪ wenn es mir nicht immer leicht fällt [32].…”