Developing and validating a hand hygiene skills intervention for Primary Health Care nurses

Hand hygiene is a cornerstone of infection prevention and control in Primary Health Care (PHC) settings. Despite established guidelines, compliance among PHC nurses in South Africa remains suboptimal. Practical, context-specific educational strategies are needed to strengthen routine practice. This study aimed to develop and validate a skills-based hand hygiene educational intervention suitable for PHC nurses.

A development-and-validation study design was used. A hand hygiene skills-based educational intervention was developed using evidence, infection prevention and control guidelines and findings from prior exploratory work. The intervention was validated using a three-round Delphi technique with 12 experts in infection prevention and control, healthcare education, public health and quality improvement. Consensus was used to assess the relevance, feasibility and educational suitability.

Consensus was achieved across all Delphi rounds on the validity and appropriateness of the intervention for PHC settings. All five components of the skills-based intervention achieved mean importance and effectiveness ratings of ≥ 4.0 on a five-point Likert scale. Six themes emerged: interactive learning; clinical contextualisation; immediate feedback; regular reinforcement; institutional culture and leadership support; and sustainability.

The study produced an expert-validated hand hygiene intervention for PHC nurses. The intervention provides a practical educational framework that for integration into existing infection prevention and control programmes in PHC clinics.Contribution: Further research is required to evaluate its impact on hand hygiene practice and patient outcomes.