Improving children’s and their visitors’ hand hygiene compliance

Abstract

Background: Numerous interventions have tried to improve healthcare workers’ hand hygiene compliance. However, little attention has been paid to children’s and their visitors’ compliance. Aim: To test whether interactive educational interventions increase children’s and visitors’ compliance with hand hygiene. Methods: This was a cluster randomised study of hand hygiene compliance before and after the introduction of educational interventions. Observations were compared for different moments of hygiene and times of the day. Qualitative data in the form of questionnaire-based structured interviews were obtained. Findings: Hand hygiene compliance increased by 24.4% ( P < 0.001) following the educational interventions, with children’s compliance reaching 40.8% and visitors’ being 50.8%. Compliance varied depending on which of the five moments of hygiene was observed ( P < 0.001), with the highest compliance being ‘after body fluid exposure’ (72.7%). 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%). Conclusion: Educational interventions may result in a significant increase in children’s and visitors’ hand hygiene ( P < 0.001).