Preventing Nosocomial Infections Through Effective Hand Hygiene

This report provides a comprehensive overview of hand hygiene practices and their impact on preventing nosocomial infections. It begins by outlining the research question focused on how compliance with hand hygiene standards by healthcare professionals can prevent the spread of nosocomial infections. The report details the databases searched (Google Scholar, MEDLINE, PubMed Central, and CINAHL) to find relevant peer-reviewed articles. Key studies are summarized, including those by Alshehari et al. (2018), Haverstick et al. (2017), Kingston et al. (2016), and Sickbert-Bennett et al. (2016), highlighting the importance of hand hygiene in reducing healthcare-associated infections. The report also references the hierarchy of evidence, with citations including Ball & Regan (2019), Farhoudi et al. (2016), Frieden (2017), and ten Ham-Baloyi & Jordan (2016), to emphasize the reliability of the research. The report aims to provide a clear understanding of evidence-based hand hygiene practices, making it a valuable resource for healthcare professionals and students.

PREVENTION OF
INFECTION- EVIDENCE-

ABOUT NOSOCOMIAL
INFECTION
Nosocomial
infection,
commonly
called as
hospital-
acquired
infection is an
infection
acquired by the
patients in
their stay
duration in
hospitals.
Some of the
widspread
infections
caused by poor
hand hygiene
are
Staphylococcus
aureus ,
Escherichia coli
and
Pseudomonas
aeruginosa
(Farhoudi et
al., 2016).
These
infections
result in
serious
deterioration of
health status
and a
prolonged stay
in the hospital,
along with the
financial
burden.
Nosocomial
infections can
be lowered by
maintaining
proper hand
hygiene, to
decrease the
transmission of
pathogen and
stop the
infections.

PICO(T) QUESTION
How can compliance to high standards of hand hygiene and
regular hand washing by the healthcare professionals prevent the
spread of nosocomial infections in healthcare settings over a
period of 12 months?
Patient/population Healthcare settings
intervention High standards of hand
hygiene and adequate hand
washing
Comparison Non-compliance to hand
hygiene and absence of
regular hand washing
Outcome Prevention of infection
Time 12 months

DATABASES SEARCHED
Google
Scholar
MEDLIN
E
PubMe
d
Central
CINAHL
The databases searched include Google Scholar, MEDLINE,
PubMed Central and CINAHL. The primary aim is to obtain
peer-reviewed published studies and research articles with
high relevance to the topic under review.

ARTICLES OBTAINED
Alshehari, A.A., Park, S. and Rashid, H., 2018. Strategies to improve hand hygiene compliance among
healthcare workers in adult intensive care units: a mini systematic review. Journal of Hospital Infection,
100(2), pp.152-158.
Haverstick, S., Goodrich, C., Freeman, R., James, S., Kullar, R. and Ahrens, M., 2017. Patients’ hand
washing and reducing hospital-acquired infection. Critical care nurse, 37(3), pp.e1-e8.
Kingston, L., O'Connell, N.H. and Dunne, C.P., 2016. Hand hygiene-related clinical trials reported since
2010: a systematic review. Journal of Hospital Infection, 92(4), pp.309-320.
Sickbert-Bennett, E.E., DiBiase, L.M., Willis, T.M.S., Wolak, E.S., Weber, D.J. and Rutala, W.A., 2016.
Reduction of healthcare-associated infections by exceeding high compliance with hand hygiene practices.
Emerging infectious diseases, 22(9), p.1628.

HIERARCHY OF
EVIDENCE
The clinicians may refer to a variety of articles classified based on
their reliability and validity of study to find the most suitable answer
to the question of focus (Ball & Regan, 2019).

LEVEL OF EVIDENCE
Kingston, O'Connell and Dunne (2016) performed a
systematic review study focusing on various clinical
trials on hand hygiene. Systematic review studies
rank the highest in the reliability scale and involve a
comprehensive review of the available literature and
appraisal (ten Ham-Baloyi & Jordan, 2016).
Alshehari, Park and Rashid (2018) undertook a mini-
systematic review to deduce the strategies to
ameliorate hand hygiene acquiescence in clinics.
Mini-systematic reviews are similar to systematic
reviews in terms of reliability and provide high-
definition results.

LEVEL OF EVIDENCE
(Contd.)
Haverstick et al. (2017) led a prospective cohort study to assess
the significance of maintaining hand hygiene and its impact in
reducing the trends of nosocomial infections in healthcare
settings. Despite positioned below systematic reviews
prospective cohort studies are designed such that their
eligibility and the study are standard (Frieden, 2017).
Sickbert-Bennett et al. (2016) performed a study design based
on the longitudinal analyses with the purpose of determining
the importance of hand hygiene compliance in lowering
infections in health care. Longitudinal analysis is the study of
short series of observations obtained from many respondents
over time and is used for several panel surveys, laboratory
experiments, and quasi-experiments in the fields of health and
biomedicine.

REFERENCES
Ball, E., & Regan, P. (2019). Interpreting research to inform
practice: The hierarchy of evidence framework. Journal of
Health Visiting, 7(1), 32-38.
Farhoudi, F., Sanaei Dashti, A., Hoshangi Davani, M., Ghalebi,
N., Sajadi, G., & Taghizadeh, R. (2016). Impact of WHO hand
hygiene improvement program implementation: a quasi-
experimental trial. BioMed research international, 2016.
Frieden, T. R. (2017). Evidence for health decision making—
beyond randomized, controlled trials. New England Journal of
Medicine, 377(5), 465-475.
ten Ham-Baloyi, W., & Jordan, P. (2016). Systematic review as
a research method in postgraduate nursing
education. health sa gesondheid, 21(1), 120-128.

Thank You!