Involving patients in understanding hospital infection control using visual methods

Area of Science:

• Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs)
• Patient safety
• Infection prevention and control (IPC)

Background:

• HAIs are a frequent patient adverse event.
• IPC strategies often overlook patient roles.
• Limited research exists on patient perspectives in IPC.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore patients' perspectives on infection prevention and control.
• To understand patient roles in reducing infection transmission.
• To identify barriers and facilitators to patient engagement in IPC.

Main Methods:

• Video-reflexive ethnography.
• Ethnographic observations (300 hours) and video footage (11 hours) in an Australian hospital.
• One-on-one reflexive sessions showing video footage to patients.

Main Results:

• Patients became more articulate about infection risks and their roles after viewing video footage.
• Barriers included lack of conversation and being ignored when challenging suboptimal practices.
• Patients developed self-protection strategies and increased their sense of agency.

Conclusions:

• Patients are active contributors to their own safety.
• Effective patient engagement in IPC relies on quality patient-provider relationships and communication.
• Clinicians should involve patients as active partners in IPC to enhance safety and reduce infection rates.