Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.20471/acc.2024.63.03-04.17
Changes in Pre- and Post-Intervention Hand Hygiene Compliance in ICU on WHO Handwashing Posters
Lada Lijović
; Department of Intensive Care Medicine, Laboratory for Critical Care Computational Intelligence, Amsterdam Medical Data Science, Amsterdam Public Health, Amsterdam Cardiovascular Science, Amsterdam Institute for Infection and Immunity, Amsterdam UMC, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Department of Anesthesiology, Intensive Medicine and Pain Management, Sestre milosrdnice University Hospital Center, Zagreb, Croatia
*
Josip Jaman
; Department of Surgery, Sestre milosrdnice University Hospital Center, Zagreb, Croatia
Yannick Mudrovčić
; Department of Surgery, Sveti Duh University Hospital, Zagreb, Croatia
Dominik Ivanković
; Department of Surgery, Merkur University Hospital, Zagreb, Croatia
Katarina Jelić
; Department of Emergency Medicine of Sisak County, Sisak, Croatia
Lana Videc Penavić
; Department of Anesthesiology, Intensive Medicine and Pain Management, Sestre milosrdnice University Hospital Center, Zagreb, Croatia
Tomislav Radočaj
; Department of Anesthesiology, Intensive Medicine and Pain Management, Sestre milosrdnice University Hospital Center, Zagreb, Croatia
Hrvoje Silovski
; Department of Surgery, Zagreb University Hospital Center, Zagreb, Croatia
* Corresponding author.
Abstract
Healthcare-associated infections (HAI) cause more deaths in the European Union
than all other infectious diseases. Hand hygiene (HH) has been considered the most important means
of preventing HAIs but HH compliance is generally less than 50%. One of the five steps that the World
Health Organization (WHO) guidelines identify to be specifically implemented are poster reminders.
The aim of this study was to evaluate compliance with HH by healthcare workers before and after an
intervention on standardized WHO HH poster reminders. An observational one-month study was conducted
in a university hospital center surgical intensive care unit. HH compliance was measured through
direct observation using WHO observation tool. Intervention was done on day 15 by replacement of
standard WHO posters with posters containing a message aimed to call for personal responsibility in
patient outcome. A total of 1113 HH opportunities were observed. Overall, HH was performed in 15.4%
of cases pre-intervention and 28.3% of cases post-intervention (p<0.001). The preferred method of HH
was soap and water. Healthcare workers mostly chose to perform HH after exposure to body fluids, where
compliance was 35.1% pre-intervention and 58.7% post-intervention. Gloves were used in 98% of cases
of clean/aseptic procedures where HH was not performed. In conclusion, using standard posters to convey
additional messages of awareness of consequences and personal responsibility may improve HH and
should be considered in multimodal approaches to improve HH compliance.
Keywords
Hand hygiene compliance; Intensive care unit; World Health Organization; Interrater reliability; Posters
Hrčak ID:
333253
URI
Publication date:
31.12.2024.
Visits: 954 *