Improving Children’s and Their Visitors’ Hand Hygiene Compliance

Abstract

BackgroundNumerous interventions have tried to improve healthcare workers hand hygiene compliance, however little attention has been paid to childrens and their visitors compliance.\n\nAimTo increase childrens and visitors compliance using interactive educational interventions.\n\nMethodsThis was an observational study of hand hygiene compliance before and after the introduction of educational interventions. Qualitative data in the form of Questionnaires and interviews was obtained.\n\nFindingsHand hygiene compliance increased by 21.4% (P <0.001) following the educational interventions, with childrens compliance reaching 40.8% and visitors being 50.8%. Compliance varied depending on which of the [fi]ve moments of hygiene was observed (P<0.001), with the highest compliance after body [fl]uid exposure (96%). Responses from questionnaires showed educational interventions raised awareness of the importance of hand hygiene (69%, 57%) compared to those who had not experienced the educational intervention (50%).\n\nConclusionEducational interventions may result in a significant increase in childrens and visitors hand hygiene (P <0.001).