Abstract
Lack of hand washing is a leading cause of food borne illnesses. To successfully increase hand hygiene compliance, interventions must have continual engagement with employees. This study used a real-time prospective memory (PM) scenario to measure the effectiveness of a control and sensory reminders of disgust to influence hand washing behavior and performance. First, a model of hand washing performance was built by having six participants’ hands contaminated with GermGlo (a florescent micro-particle) and then washed their hands using predetermined protocols while monitored by an electronic hand hygiene verification (HHV) system. Next, eighty Hispanic/Latino participants, in a between-group experimental design, performed a PM experiment while one of four reminders were present (hand washing poster, disgusting image, disgusting sound, and disgusting odor) as the HHV recorded their hand washing performance. Visual cues, typical of hand washing campaigns, were not as effective at increasing hand hygiene compliance as disgust-induced sensory cues. Furthermore, olfactory disgust showed a significantly higher probability that individuals would engage in hand washing behaviors than all other conditions. This study provides new insight into the effectiveness of different senses and emotion to reduce the intention-behavior gap associated with modifying behaviors, and broadens current PM research to a real-time application.
Highlights
Food borne diseases are a serious public health concern in the United States and worldwide[1,2]
According the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)[11], increased hand washing performance in parallel with compliance should be the driving force in hand washing interventions to minimize the risk of foodborne disease
According to Po, Bourquin, Occena, & Po (2011), due to the diverse workforce in the modern food service industry, visuals or text prompts that are used in food safety interventions must be cross cultural and multilingual in order to be effective
Summary
Food borne diseases are a serious public health concern in the United States and worldwide[1,2]. York et al (2009)[13] pointed out that long-term success in something as routine as hand washing requires multiple interventions in which hand washing components are incorporated into the environment, displaying posters and reminders (in culturally appropriate ways including making the reminders in the workers’ native language). These reminders reinforce basic concepts and emphasize desired behavior reducing www.nature.com/scientificreports/. In a hospital environment McGuckin et al (2006) used role-modeling by using voice prompts recorded by different authoritative figures (e.g., shift managers) as hand hygiene reminders Through this approach, the hospital saw a 60% overall increase in hand soap and sanitizer usage. They were able to demonstrate early chemosensory detection of smell among healthy individuals who rated odors of endotoxin-exposed individuals as more unpleasant, intense and unhealthy providing an avoidance mechanism for sickness
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