Abstract
BACKGROUND: The issue of 'centre' or 'hospital' as an independent variable has not been studied extensively in healthcare workers' hand-hygiene practices. AIM: To investigate healthcare workers' compliance with hand-hygiene guidelines in four acute-care hospitals in Ireland and to examine factors that contributed to non-compliance. METHOD: Data collectors observed healthcare workers in four hospitals. RESULTS: Data (n = 1,737 observations) was drawn from a random sample of nurses, doctors, physiotherapists and HCAs (n = 280 staff). Findings revealed that the individual hospital has a significant impact. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed healthcare workers in centre 4 had a significantly higher likelihood of non-compliance than those in all other centres (p = 0.003), irrespective of gender, discipline or area of work. CONCLUSION: The findings make an important contribution to the study of healthcare workers' hand-hygiene behaviour and control of healthcare-associated infections. A possible explanation of the results may be related to variations in organisational support and hospital culture.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 32-35 |
| Number of pages | 4 |
| Journal | Nursing Times |
| Volume | 104 |
| Issue number | 49 |
| Publication status | Published - 9 Dec 2008 |