Higiene de las manos: conocimientos de los profesionales y áreas de mejora

Posters as a Tool to Improve Hand Hygiene among Health Science Students: Case-Control Study

(1) Background: Numerous educational interventions have been conducted to improve hand hygiene (HH) compliance and effectiveness among nursing students, with mixed results. The aim is to evaluate the effectiveness of posters as a teaching tool and factors associated with HH quality. (2) Methods: A pre-post experimental intervention study was conducted with a total of 293 nursing students randomly assigned to two groups (experimental and control) who, before and after HH, took cell culture samples from their non-dominant hands. Only the experimental group was exposed to the poster. (3) Results: In the experimental group, significant differences were observed among students older than 22 years (p = 0.017; V = 0.188), with a higher percentage of failures (15.7% vs. 3.6%). Poster displaying was associated with passing, other variables being equal, although without statistical significance (ORa = 2.07; 95% CI = 0.81-5.26). Pre-practice hand contamination was weakly associated with lower HH quality (ORa = 0.99, 95% CI = 0.99-0.99). (4) Conclusions: The use of posters as a teaching method shows indications of efficacy. Prior hand contamination slightly affects the quality of HH. Further evaluation of teaching methods is needed to ensure good technical performance of HH to prevent the spread of infectious diseases during the COVID-19 pandemic.

[Perceptions of intensive care professionals about hand hygiene compared with observational studies]

OBJETIVE

To identify perceptions and knowledge about the adherence to hand hygiene of the healthcare staff of an intensive care unit, correlating them with compliance data on adherence to hand hygiene through observational studies MATERIAL AND METHOD: A quantitative methodology has been combined, based on the completion of a personal survey, and a qualitative methodology based on direct observation. Units of Intensive Care of Adults (A-ICU) and Pediatrics (P-ICU) of a tertiary hospital. There were 187 health professionals. Personal and work data of the professionals were collected, as well as questions related to their knowledge and perceptions about the hand hygiene.

RESULTS

Those 187 professionals, 75,9% from A-ICU, represented more than 80% of the study population, and 91.4% had received previous training on hand hygiene. Regarding knowledge, 35% of the A-ICU professionals and almost 50% from the P-ICU consider that hand washing is more effective than hand friction with alcohol-based solutions for the elimination of microorganisms. They have a better perception that they correctly perform the hand washing (89.32% ICU-P and 82.93% ICU-A), than when we compare them to the adherence rates obtained by direct observation (ICU-P 73.8% and ICU-A 51.4%, P=0.0001).

CONCLUSIONS

Despite having previous training on hand hygiene, they have incomplete knowledge and, although they overestimate the problem of the healthcare-associated infections, they have a perception that does not fit with reality.

Knowledge about precautions in Primary Health Care: tool validation

OBJECTIVE

To elaborate and validate a tool to assess knowledge and behavior of nursing professionals about standards and specific precautions in the Primary Health Care.

METHOD

Methodological study of the elaboration and validation of the tool by thirteen experts judges, using a Likert scale of 4 points, with Content Validity Index ≥ 0.80, on clarity, relevance and pertinence.

RESULTS

A tool composed of 47 dichotomous questions to assess knowledge and 12 questions, with five options of answers, for the referred behavior. In the validation, only one item was deleted, related to the "Hands Hygiene" axis and one item was reformulated, regarding "Use of Common Gloves" and another 11 changed writing. The tool as a whole was assessed for relevance, comprehensiveness and representativeness within the scope of the topic investigated.

CONCLUSION

The developed tool has been validated and is now available for use in Primary Health Care.