Hand hygiene: the impact of incentive strategies on adherence among healthcare workers from a newborn intensive care unit

We carried out a before-after non-controlled intervention study to assess the impact of different handwashing strategies in health care workers at a neonatal ICU in Goiânia - Goiás, Brazil. All ethical aspects were considered. Data was collected by using a check list in order to register hand hygiene opportunities during six months. Three strategies were elaborated together with the hospital team. We observed 1358 handwashing opportunities. Incentive strategies caused a small impact on the increase of adherence to hand hygiene during and after the implementation period. However, we noticed that this increase mainly occurred after the procedures were realized. On the whole, adherence levels were similar before (62.2%) and after (61.6%) the procedures. The study showed that health care workers were more worried about individual risks.

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Neves,Zilah Cândida Pereira das, Tipple,Anaclara Ferreira Veiga, Souza,Adenícia Custódia Silva e, Pereira,Milca Severino, Melo,Dulcelene de Sousa, Ferreira,Lucimar Rodrigues
Format: Digital revista
Language:English
Published: Escola de Enfermagem de Ribeirão Preto / Universidade de São Paulo 2006
Online Access:http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0104-11692006000400012
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:We carried out a before-after non-controlled intervention study to assess the impact of different handwashing strategies in health care workers at a neonatal ICU in Goiânia - Goiás, Brazil. All ethical aspects were considered. Data was collected by using a check list in order to register hand hygiene opportunities during six months. Three strategies were elaborated together with the hospital team. We observed 1358 handwashing opportunities. Incentive strategies caused a small impact on the increase of adherence to hand hygiene during and after the implementation period. However, we noticed that this increase mainly occurred after the procedures were realized. On the whole, adherence levels were similar before (62.2%) and after (61.6%) the procedures. The study showed that health care workers were more worried about individual risks.