Discuss Effectiveness of Hand hygiene and Hospital Acquired Infections

Patient outcomes can be improved through hand hygiene among nurses when providing care to prevent hospital acquired infections. According to the CDC, every year about 5 percent of the hospital admitted patients suffer from healthcare associated infections which is estimated about 772,000 infections leading up to 75,000 deaths with $28-44 billion excess costs related to healthcare associated infections (Public Health, 2020). Training nurses in proper hand washing hygiene affects their knowledge levels and their hand washing behavior positively. World Health Organization reports that observing hand hygiene among providers can reduce hospital acquired infections by 50%, which is why “My five moments for hand washing” was initiated with the primary goal of preventing contact related infections (Jemal, 2018). Every effort should be made to maintain hand hygiene in a healthcare setting. The question that would be asked based on the current knowledge is “Does maintaining hand hygiene by health care nurses reduce prevalence of hospital-based infections as compared to poor hand hygiene during hospitalization period?”

Summary of Research

The study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of hygienic washing of hands-on hand washing practices and knowledge among nurses. Training nurses on hand hygiene improved nurses’ knowledge about hand washing. After training on hand hygiene 90% percent of the nurses responded correctly on questions on areas they should focus on when washing hand and 77.78% had knowledge on areas they should focus on when washing hands (Karaoglu & Akin, 2018). The study findings shows that frequent training about hand washing among nurses is important to improve their hand washing knowledge and reduce prevalence of hospital-based infections.

Reliability of the article

Reliability is based on ensuring consistency of measurement tool that were employed in a study (Mohajan, 2017). The research article used Hand Washing Observation Tool, which may produce different scores when retested and would lead to higher testing errors. Outcomes were assessed on the basic of time each person took while following proper hand washing based on CDC recommendations as hand hygiene practice (Karaoglu & Akin, 2018).

Validity of the article

Validity refers to the measurement of representation the subject as extent to accurately measure concepts (Mohajan, 2017). The researcher used content validity and issued a Hand Hygiene Knowledge Form that covered all aspects of the study. The Hand Hygiene Knowledge Form consists of multiple-choice questions about their knowledge level of hand hygiene (Karaoglu & Akin, 2018).

Strengths or weaknesses

There are two weaknesses made on the methods used by the authors of the article. The nurses’ compliance with hand hygiene was assessed only once and does not provide long term impact after hand washing training. Secondly, a single hand washing training is not likely to have a significant impact on hand washing, which would call for a repeated assessment on the impact of training (Karaoglu & Akin, 2018). Repeated training and observations would help come up with more reliable results.

Clinical practice guideline

The name of the website for clinical practice guideline is Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), which provides guidelines on hand hygiene. It is found at https://www.ahrq.gov/hai/quality/tools/cauti-ltc/modules/implementation/education-bundles/infection-prevention/hand-hygiene/hand-hygiene-slides.html. AHRQ provides that hands washing should be thorough such that they do not become media for spreading infections. AHRQ also recommends that providers should use soap and water after caring for patients with diarrhea and use gloves to prevent hand contamination. AHRQ also recommends that gloves should be changed when moving from an infected site to a healthy site and change them immediately they finish with the patient followed by hand hygiene, to ensure no bacteria are left on the hand.

Fourth Source

Sands & Aunger (2020) found that hospital management plays a very important role in motivating the nurses to follow hand hygiene. Some of the potential areas that hospital management should focus on to improve hand hygiene compliance among the nurses include ensuring openness in communication and proportionate role assigned to reduce the level of stress to ensure they comply with set hygiene standards to prevent health care associated infections. Higher personal interaction with patients increased hand hygiene compliance. More importantly, Hand hygiene depends on personal ability to manage various aspects of professional health practice (Sands & Aunger, 2020).

Conclusion

Hand hygiene compliance results in a reduction of hospital-based infections. Training nurses about hand hygiene would help boost their knowledge on impacts of hand hygiene on healthcare delivery and improved patient outcomes. However, all stakeholders including hospital managers should play a central role in ensuring nurses are trained and they are assigned duties within their abilities, to avoid stress that would lead to their failure to adhere to established hand hygiene practices. In addition, nurses should take a personal responsibility by ensuring they observe hygiene measures when tending to patients to reduce numbers of Hospital acquired infections.

References

Agency for Health Research and Quality. Hand Hygiene. https://www.ahrq.gov/hai/quality/tools/cauti-ltc/modules/implementation/education-bundles/infection-prevention/hand-hygiene/hand-hygiene-slides.html

Jemal, S. (2018). Knowledge and practices of hand washing among health professionals in Dubti Referral Hospital, Dubti, Afar, Northeast Ethiopia. Advances in preventive medicine, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/5290797

Karaoglu, M. K., & Akin, S. (2018). Effectiveness of hygienic hand washing training on hand washing practices and knowledge: A nonrandomized quasi-experimental design. The Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing, 49(8), 360-371. https://doi.org/10.3928/00220124-20180718-07

Mohajan, H. K. (2017). Two criteria for good measurements in research: Validity and reliability. Annals of Spiru Haret University. Economic Series, 17(4), 59-82.

Public Health, E. (2020, August 14). Diseases & topics. NC DPH: Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAIs). Retrieved October 2, 2021, from https://epi.dph.ncdhhs.gov/cd/diseases/hai.html

Sands, M., & Aunger, R. (2020). Determinants of hand hygiene compliance among nurses in US hospitals: A formative research study. PloS one, 15(4), e0230573. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0230573