Increasing Hand Hygiene Compliance Through Priming Interventions

Healthcare-associated pathogens are present in medical settings, and healthcare workers’ hands are the most common route of transmission for spreading bacteria to patients resulting in infection. Hand hygiene is essential for preventing hospital-acquired infections (HAIs); however, compliance remains suboptimal, even after decades of studies aim to improve, so further innovation is needed. Psychological priming is exposure to certain cues (primes) which stimulates mental activity. Priming modifies behavior without the subjects’ knowledge of the impact the cues have on their performance. Priming has been shown to be useful in increasing hand hygiene compliance across medical settings. This literature review and study conducted at a University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) aim to investigate the influence that the induction of priming conditioning has on hand hygiene compliance in medical settings