Cargando…

Hand hygiene compliance among healthcare workers before and during the COVID-19 pandemic

BACKGROUND: Healthcare workers’ (HCWs) adherence to hand hygiene is vital in combatting COVID-19 in hospitals. We aimed to investigate HCWs hand hygiene compliance before and during the COVID-19 pandemic and hypothesised that hand hygiene compliance would increase during the pandemic. METHODS: We co...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Sandbøl, Susanne Gundersborg, Glassou, Eva Natalia, Ellermann-Eriksen, Svend, Haagerup, Annette
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, Inc. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8966111/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35367321
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ajic.2022.03.014
Descripción
Sumario:BACKGROUND: Healthcare workers’ (HCWs) adherence to hand hygiene is vital in combatting COVID-19 in hospitals. We aimed to investigate HCWs hand hygiene compliance before and during the COVID-19 pandemic and hypothesised that hand hygiene compliance would increase during the pandemic. METHODS: We conducted a prospective observational study in three medical departments at the Regional Hospital of West Jutland, Denmark from April 2019 to August 2020. A total of 150 HCWs participated before the COVID-19 pandemic and 136 during the pandemic. Hand hygiene observations were assessed using an automated hand hygiene monitoring system. Students unpaired t-test was used to assess differences in hand hygiene compliance rates in each department. RESULTS: Comparison analyses showed, that hand hygiene compliance in department A and B was significantly higher before the COVID-19 pandemic than during the pandemic; a 7% difference in department A and a 5% difference in department B. For department C, the total hand hygiene compliance was unchanged during the pandemic compared to before. CONCLUSION: The COVID-19 pandemic did not raise hand hygiene compliance. Further studies are needed to verify these findings and further identify barriers to hand hygiene compliance among HCWs.