TITLE:
Analysis of Compliance and Barriers for Hand Hygiene Practices among Health Care Workers during COVID-19 Pandemic Management in Tertiary Care Hospital of India—An Important Step for Second Wave Preparedness
AUTHORS:
Keshvi Chauhan, Yogita Mistry, Summaiya Mullan
KEYWORDS:
Hand Hygiene, COVID-19, Barriers, Health Care Workers, Knowledge, Attitude, Practices
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Medical Microbiology,
Vol.10 No.4,
November
30,
2020
ABSTRACT: Introduction: Hands of health care workers play an important part
in infection transmission in a healthcare setting infections. Even though it is
a simple and effective procedure, it is many times ignored by the health care
workers (HCWs) due to lack of knowledge and interest, time constraints, skin
irritation, understaffing, etc. There are no specific drugs and vaccines
available for COVID-19 pandemic management, so as control measures, hand
hygiene is an essential measure. It will be helpful even for the second wave
preparedness. So this study was planned for analysis of barriers and practices
of hand hygiene among health care workers which determine the adherence of hand
hygiene in medical practice. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study
designed during COVID-19 pandemic management to analyze the barriers and
knowledge, attitude and practices in health care workers for hand hygiene.
Semi-structured questionnaires based study based on previous experience of
seasonal flu outbreak was make to know barriers as well as to analyze the
knowledge, attitude and practices of Health care workers. 215 participants were
enrolled who were doctors, resident doctors, nurses, lab technicians, ward boys
and food distributors. Results: The “Barriers” related questions’
analysis showed that hand hygiene facilities, with the supply of soap, hand
rub, basins with adequate as well as clean water, are available at various
places in the Hospital. In knowledge related questions, major gaps are found in
5 moments of hand hygiene and regarding aspects of alcohol-based hand-rub.
Majority HCWs show a good attitude towards questions that hand hygiene is an
important thing to do along with other works and they feel frustrated when others or they themselves
omit hand hygiene. But the attitude toward hand hygiene when hands are not
visibly soiled and when working with gloved hand showed a wrong attitude. There
is a major gap in practices of hand hygiene. The majority feel hand hygiene is
difficult due to work pressure, sometimes they forgot, they feel it difficult
to adhere due to more steps during an emergency. Discussion: Hand
hygiene is an essential part of COVID-19 pandemic management. Less compliance
was observed due to a lack of knowledge and awareness. Such ignorance leads to
an increase in Hospital-acquired infection. Conclusion: Good
preparedness by Government and Institute for supplying adequate hand hygiene
facilities in the work area for health care workers. But there were few gaps
found in knowledge and attitude-related questionnaires and major gaps in
practices were found which should be corrected by repeated training, awareness
programs, demonstrations for hand hygiene and hands-on training. Conducting
Periodic Webinar can be the most useful, convenient and safe method to provide
training during the COVID-19 pandemic.