Healthcare worker compliance with the World Health Organization's six steps of using hand rub to completely cover hands pales in comparison to their compliance with WHO's Five Moments for Hand Hygiene, according to a study published in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology.
WHO's steps for properly using hand rub can be found here.
Researchers conducted an observational study between 2010 and 2013 in numerous medical and surgical wards of a tertiary academic medical care center in Switzerland. In total, they observed more than 2,600 hand hygiene opportunities among nurses, physicians and other healthcare workers.
The clinicians met all five moments of WHO's hand hygiene guidelines with a compliance rate of 93.2 percent. Compliance with all six steps of WHO's guideline for properly using alcohol-based hand rub was only 8.5 percent.
Highlighted below are four findings regarding compliance with WHO's hand rub technique.
- The majority of healthcare workers adhered to the second and third steps of the technique
- Compliance with all six steps of using hand rub was not associated with profession (nurse, physician, etc.)
- Young healthcare workers (25 years of age or younger) demonstrated a higher rate of compliance with the six steps than older workers
- Compliance with all six steps decreased the longer a healthcare worker was employed with the institution
"These observations are concerning, as noncompliance with the proper technique for using hand rub may result in failure to cover all skin surfaces and, hence, insufficient bacterial killing." according to the study authors.
Study authors suggest repeating training programs on the proper hand hygiene technique throughout healthcare workers' careers to ensure greater compliance and reduction of bacterial densities.
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