Abstract
(1) Background: Numerous educational interventions have been conducted to improve hand hygiene (HH) compliance and effectiveness among nursing students, with mixed results. The aim is to evaluate the effectiveness of posters as a teaching tool and factors associated with HH quality. (2) Methods: A pre-post experimental intervention study was conducted with a total of 293 nursing students randomly assigned to two groups (experimental and control) who, before and after HH, took cell culture samples from their non-dominant hands. Only the experimental group was exposed to the poster. (3) Results: In the experimental group, significant differences were observed among students older than 22 years (p = 0.017; V = 0.188), with a higher percentage of failures (15.7% vs. 3.6%). Poster displaying was associated with passing, other variables being equal, although without statistical significance (ORa = 2.07; 95% CI = 0.81–5.26). Pre-practice hand contamination was weakly associated with lower HH quality (ORa = 0.99, 95% CI = 0.99–0.99). (4) Conclusions: The use of posters as a teaching method shows indications of efficacy. Prior hand contamination slightly affects the quality of HH. Further evaluation of teaching methods is needed to ensure good technical performance of HH to prevent the spread of infectious diseases during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Highlights
The effectiveness and utility of hand hygiene (HH) for infection prevention in healthcare is undisputed, and this is all the more true during the COVID-19 pandemic [1,2,3,4,5] While nurses generally tend to comply with HH recommendations [6], this form of hygiene is not always performed correctly [7,8,9,10]
Nursing students can act as potential vectors of infectious diseases during their clinical placements [7,8], which is why theory and practical training in HH is provided from the very beginning of their academic studies [7,14,15]
The last group of fourth-year students, who were assigned to the control group, were not able to participate in the study due to the suspension of face-to-face tuition caused by the COVID-19 pandemic
Summary
The effectiveness and utility of hand hygiene (HH) for infection prevention in healthcare is undisputed, and this is all the more true during the COVID-19 pandemic [1,2,3,4,5] While nurses generally tend to comply with HH recommendations [6], this form of hygiene is not always performed correctly [7,8,9,10]. Public Health 2021, 18, 11123 prevented the reduction of the instructions of the antibiotic treatment in patients In studies such as the one developed by Sundal et al [19], the degree of general compliance in HH in nursing students was estimated to be 83.5% during their clinical internship. In these studies, the five moments of the HH of the WHO were evaluated: firstly, before touching the patient; secondly, before the cleaning/washing procedure; thirdly, after exposure to body fluids; fourthly, after touching the patient; and after touching a patient in the environment [19,20]. To the best of our knowledge, there are no studies to date assessing the effectiveness of posters as a teaching method for improving the HH technique among nursing students. This study has two aims: firstly, to evaluate the effectiveness of the poster as a tool for improving the quality of HH among nursing students; secondly, to determine the factors associated with correct HH among nursing students
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