Nurses' perceptions of reasons for persistent low rates in hand hygiene compliance

The purpose of this study was to explore nurses' perceptions of reasons for persistent low rates in hand hygiene compliance in the Critical Care Unit and their recommendations for improvement.

This study used an exploratory, descriptive survey design to identify critical care nurses' perceptions of barriers to hand hygiene compliance in the unit and their recommendations for improvement.

Nurses selected high workload, understaffing and suggested lack of time as the main problems with hand hygiene compliance in the critical care unit. Second to that, they identified difficulty accessing sinks and lack of appropriately located hand sanitisers at the point of care complemented by suggestions of not enough sinks and inconveniently located hand sanitiser as major barriers to hand hygiene compliance.

Results of this study indicate that high workload and understaffing added to difficulty accessing hand hygiene resources contribute to low rates of hand hygiene compliance in the critical care unit. Addressing nursing understaffing and workload and making some environmental modifications to allow easy access to sinks and hand sanitisers may facilitate nurses hand hygiene compliance in this setting. Further studies on the relationship between nurses' workload, unit staffing, and hand hygiene compliance rates are needed.