Hand hygiene compliance and its drivers in long-term care facilities; observations and a survey

BACKGROUND: Hand hygiene is an important measure to prevent healthcare-associated infections in long-term care facilities. OBJECTIVES: To evaluate compliance with hand hygiene recommendations by different nursing professionals in long-term care facilities and to investigate determinants potentially influencing hand hygiene and whether these differed between the different cadres of staff. METHODS: We conducted two sub-studies: we measured hand hygiene compliance of 496 professionals in 14 long-term care facilities (23 wards) through direct observation using World Health Organisation’s ‘five moments of hand hygiene’ observation tool. In addition, we performed a survey to examine determinants that may influence hand hygiene and to determine differences between different cadres of staff. We used a principal component analysis approach with varimax rotation to explore the underlying factor structure of the determinants. RESULTS: We found an overall mean hand hygiene compliance of 17%. There was considerable variation between wards (5–38%) and between specific World Health Organization hand hygiene moments. In addition, hand hygiene compliance varied widely within and between different cadres of staff. The determinant analysis was conducted on 177 questionnaires. For all nursing professionals, we found multiple determinants in four domains: ‘social context and leadership’, ‘resources’, ‘individual healthcare professional factors’ and ‘risk perception’. In two domains, several barriers were perceived differently by nursing assistants and nurses. In the domain ‘social context and leadership’, this included (1) how the manager addresses barriers to enable hand hygiene as recommended and (2) how the manager pays attention to correct adherence to the hand hygiene guidelines. In the ‘risk perception’ domain, this included a resident's risk of acquiring an infection as a result of the nursing professional’s failure to comply with the hand hygiene guidelines. CONCLUSION: Hand hygiene compliance was low and influenced by multiple factors, several of which varied among different cadres of staff. When designing interventions to improve hand hygiene performance in long-term care facilities, strategies should take into account these determinants and how they vary between different cadres of staff. We recommend exploring hand hygiene determinants at ward level and among different cadres of staff, for example by using our exploratory questionnaire. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Registration number 50-53000-98-113, ‘Compliance with hand hygiene in nursing homes: go for a sustainable effect’ on ClinicalTrials.gov. Date of registration 28-6-2016. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13756-022-01088-w.