Impact of direct hand hygiene observations and feedback on hand hygiene compliance among nurses and doctors in medical and surgical wards: an eight-year observational study

Background: The improvement of hand hygiene compliance (HHC) is vital for preventing healthcare-associated infections (HAIs). Aim: To determine whether observation and feedback influences HHC among nurses and doctors in surgical and medical wards, and whether these actions impact HAI incidence. Methods: In this longitudinal observational study, HHC and the incidence of HAIs were observed in six medical and seven surgical wards in a tertiary hospital in Finland from May 2013 to December 2020. Data of the observations of five hand hygiene (HH) moments were collected from the hospital HH and the HAI monitoring registries. For statistical analyses a multivariable logistic regression analysis and a Poisson regression model were used. Findings: HH monitoring included 24,614 observations among nurses and 6396 observations among doctors. In medical wards, HHC rates increased 10.8%, from 86.2% to 95.5%, and HAI incidence decreased from 15.9 to 13.5 per 1000 patient-days (P
Source: Current Awareness Service for Health (CASH) - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news