Improving children’s and their visitors’ hand hygiene compliance

Background: Numerous interventions have tried to improve healthcare workers' hand hygiene compliance, however little attention has been paid to children's and their visitors’ compliance.Aim: To increase children’s and visitors’ compliance using interactive educational interventions. Methods: This was an observational study of hand hygiene compliance before and after the introduction of educational interventions. Qualitative data in the form of Questionnaires and interviews was obtained.Findings: Hand hygiene compliance increased by 21.4% (P [less than] 0.001) following the educational interventions, with children's compliance reaching 40.8% and visitors' being 50.8%. Compliance varied depending on which of the five moments of hygiene was observed (P [less than] 0.001), with the highest compliance was ‘after body fluid exposure’ (96%). Responses from questionnaires showed educational interventions raised awareness of the importance of hand hygiene (69%, 57%) compared to those who hadn't experienced the educational intervention (50%). Conclusion: Educational interventions may result in a significant increase in children's and visitors' hand hygiene (P [less than] 0.001)