Engagement of Italian infection preventionist nurses in hand hygiene programs: A cross-sectional study

Infection preventionist nurses (IPNs) are involved in Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) programs in health care facilities; their competencies and role are well defined, the application of guidelines remains inconsistent worldwide.

A cross-sectional study to assess Italian IPNs' competencies and commitment to hand hygiene (HH) programs.

Respondents were n = 252/564 (44.7%). Processes as HH surveillance, HH raw data analysis and reporting are primarily carried out by IPNs. Median IPN-to-beds-ratio among respondents is 1:210.3 (sd 168.5, n = 218). The larger the hospital, the higher the frequency of IPNs. In larger hospitals data are collected digitally compared to smaller hospitals. Teaching Hospitals rely on specialized workers (ie, statisticians) for data analysis. Barriers to compliance are organizational, structural and personal, with variations in compliance among health care professionals.

IPNs are primarily involved in HH IPC programs compared to ILN or clinicians. Several processes still rely on manual input and paper-based systems. Stratifying by hospital size and organization does not yield clear results. HH compliance has been analyzed based on IPN expertise.

IPNs face an increasing workload; the IPN-to-beds-ratio remains under-regulated relative to the complexity of IPC processes managed by IPNs. Additional research into IPNs' competencies, role, and engagement is needed.