Background
Hand hygiene compliance rates among health care workers (HCW) rarely exceed 50%. Contact
precautions are thought to increase HCWs' hand hygiene awareness. We sought to determine
any differences in hand hygiene compliance rates for HCW between patients in contact
precaution and those not in any isolation.
Methods
In a hospital's medical (MICU) and surgical (SICU) intensive care units, a trained
observer directly observed hand hygiene by the type of room (contact precaution or
noncontact precaution) and the type of HCW (nurse or doctor).
Results
The SICU had similar compliance rates (36/75 [50.7%] in contact precaution rooms vs
223/431 [51.7%] compliance in noncontact precaution rooms, P > .5); the MICU also had similar hand hygiene compliance rates (67/132 [45.1%] in
contact precaution rooms vs 96/213 [50.8%] in noncontact precaution rooms, P > .10). Hand hygiene compliance rates stratified by HCW were similar with 1 exception.
The MICU nurses had a higher rate of hand hygiene compliance in contact precaution
rooms than in rooms with noncontact precautions (66.7% vs 51.6%, respectively).
Conclusion
Compliance with hand hygiene among HCWs did not differ between contact precaution
rooms and rooms with noncontact precautions with the exception of the nurses in the
MICU.
Key Words
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Article Info
Publication History
Published online: March 02, 2010
Footnotes
Conflicts of interest: None to report.
Identification
Copyright
Published by Elsevier Inc.
