Promotion of Successful Hand Hygiene practices in the Intensive Care Units of a Tertiary Care Hospital

Assessment of nurses’ perceptions and adherence to five moments of hand hygiene in selected units at a University Teaching Hospital in Rwanda

“…[7] The highest hand hygiene adherence rate was observed after body fluid exposure risk (82.1%), and the lowest was observed before touching a patient (27.4%), similar to a study in India. [13] These findings are also similar to a study conducted in Brazil which revealed that the moment (indication) "before touching a patient" was most likely to be missed, [18] and the lowest adherence rates to hand hygiene were before touching the patient (18.4%) and before aseptic procedure (20.9%). [2] Given these findings, it appears that many HCPs prefer to perform hand hygiene after patient contact rather than before, which indicated they perceived their risk of susceptibility and severity of illness more important than the patient.…”

“…Adherence rate was calculated using the following formula as recommended by WHO, [7] and the study by Taneja and Mishra. [13] Total number of acts of hand hygiene when the opportunity existed ___________________________________________________ x 100 Total number of hand hygiene opportunities…”

“…[7,12] The low hand hygiene adherence rate (43.7%) was observed in a study conducted in Brazil, [2] and in India; and an intervention increased the baseline hand hygiene adherence rate of 52% to 63%. [13] Based on these findings, it is evident that the WHO five moments for hand hygiene are not adequately practised and likely worldwide problem among HCPs. [12] According to the WHO, low compliance rate equates to missed actions.…”

“…[7,12] The studies conducted in India and Brazil revealed that most of the HCPs do hand hygiene after patient care than before contact with the patient. [2,9,13] Despite the low hand hygiene compliance rates, in various studies conducted in India, Iran and Arabia, the participants revealed good awareness and positive perceptions towards hand hygiene and HCAIs. [1,[14][15][16] The most perceived barriers that hinder hand hygiene practice in different studies conducted in India, Iran and Uganda were busy workload, forgetfulness, lack of time for hand washing, location and shortage of sinks and water, gloves use, fearing skin problems, lack of hand hygiene products, lack of role model, encouragement and motivation.…”

Hand Hygiene Teaching Strategies among Nursing Staff: A Systematic Review

“…In view of these considerations, it would be useful to investigate the degree of awareness among health staff in general, and nurses in particular, of these questions. It has been observed that although nurses may be perfectly acquainted with the underlying ideas of hand hygiene and may be willing to put them into practice (up to 94% agree with these statements), the technique is performed correctly by only 52% of nurses [7], and sometimes by even fewer. This gap between theory and practice raises serious concerns.…”