Motivation to comply with infection control procedures

This paper addresses the critical issue of motivating hospital staff to comply with standard infection control procedures. Previous psychological assessment of infection control knowledge, attitudes and behaviour has indicated that the reasons for non-compliance are very basic and reflect inter alia a low perception of the importance of the measures and a lack of motivation. It is argued that, although staff have a theoretical awareness of the value of complying with such procedures, in practice these seem to have a low priority. Compliance levels, therefore, are variable and generally of a low order. If recent advances in the fields of social psychology, behavioural psychology and clinical psychology could be imported to hospital medicine, they could have a dramatic impact in infection control. The Elaboration Likelihood Model, an effective theoretical approach to message-based persuasion, and the energizing effects of intrinsic and extrinsic motivational processes are defined. Finally, the implications of these concepts for persuasive intra-hospital communication in infection control are highlighted. They can provide a framework for developing effective infection prevention programmes.