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259 Explanation of Hand Hygiene Adherence among Health Care Personnel

Friday, March 19, 2010
Grand Hall (Hyatt Regency Atlanta)
Jae Sim Jeong, RN, PhD, APN , University of Ulsan, Seoul, South Korea
Sun Hee Kwak, RN , Asan Medical Center, Seoul, South Korea
Kyung Mi Kim, RN, PhD , Semyung University, Jecheon City, Chungcheongbuk-do, South Korea
Sang-Oh Lee, MD, PhD , Asan Medical Center, Seoul, South Korea
Yang Soo Kim, MD, PhD , University of Ulsan Asan Medical Center, Seoul, South Korea
Background: Hand hygiene (HH) is not properly practiced in Emergency Department (ED) due to busy and compex environment. It is needed to identify HH adherence and related factors in ED to improve HH practice.

Objective: To determine and compare the factors which influence HH adherence among health care personnel (HCP) by using Theory of Planned Action and to apply the result to develop effective and individual HH improvement programs for ED and Intensive Care Units (ICU)

Methods: Cross-sectional survey, by use of anonymous, self-administered questionnaire. A total of 328 HCP, 40.5% (133) from ED and 59.5% (195) from ICU, at 6 general hospitals in Korea, were participated. Published questionnaire was translated into Korean which consisted of 26 items in five categories based on Theory of Planned Action; 11 items on demographics, 6 items on behavioral beliefs, 7 items on normative beliefs, 1 item for control beliefs, and 1 item for self-reported adherence. Most of items were 7 score Likert scales and highest 2 scores (6 and 7) were regarded as positive responses. Ethical consideration for participants was reviewed.

Results: The HCP in ICU showed higher score in all items of behavioral beliefs (p<.005) except the belief of severity of healthcare-associated infection. Among normative beliefs, the positive responses were different between ED and ICU in 4 items. The control belief was significantly higher in ICU (45.6%) than ED (32.3%) (p=.02). Self-reported adherence to HH was 69.7±20.5% and 59.8±22.5% in ICU and ER, respectively (p=.001).

Conclusions: As expected, the beliefs on HH in ER are generally lower than those of ICU and influencing factors were not identical in two departments. The HH improving programs for ED and ICU should consider the environments of each department and factors to affect the beliefs on HH.