Infection Prevention and Control

The study aims at identifying the reasons for a plateau compliance rate of 66% in spite of having implemented a strong hospital hand hygiene program. This was a quantitative study to address the issue of hand hygiene compliance among healthcare workers by assessing their perception towards the hand hygiene program at the hospital through a survey and focus group discussions. A total of 250 healthcare workers were included in the survey. The target population included doctors:interns, residents/medical officers and consultants/specialists, along with 150 nurses: unit and staff nurses. The focus group discussions facilitated a debate regarding the current program and the challenges faced by the staff in their role as the end users. The P value was calculated based on these results using a Chi square test. The P value calculated based on the audit was 0.28 with a significance of 0.05 calculated to two degrees of freedom. The χ2 value was 2.52. A 92.4% participation rate was recorded and significant differences were noted in the perception of hand hygiene between junior and senior staff. Areas of poor scores were elaborated on in the focus group discussions to understand reasoning behind the responses and reach a consensus on the best way to tackle the issues faced. The study highlights the success of the hospital wide hand hygiene program while underscoring the areas for improvement and concern, the need for constant hand hygiene education and intervention in a large hospital in spite of having an established program and establishes a benchmark for further studies in hand hygiene compliance.