↓ Skip to main content

Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews

Interventions to improve hand hygiene compliance in patient care

Overview of attention for article published in Cochrane database of systematic reviews, September 2017
Altmetric Badge

About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (99th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (98th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
17 news outlets
blogs
5 blogs
policy
3 policy sources
twitter
141 X users
facebook
11 Facebook pages
wikipedia
3 Wikipedia pages

Citations

dimensions_citation
263 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
598 Mendeley
citeulike
1 CiteULike
Title
Interventions to improve hand hygiene compliance in patient care
Published in
Cochrane database of systematic reviews, September 2017
DOI 10.1002/14651858.cd005186.pub4
Pubmed ID
Authors

Dinah J Gould, Donna Moralejo, Nicholas Drey, Jane H Chudleigh, Monica Taljaard

Abstract

Health care-associated infection is a major cause of morbidity and mortality. Hand hygiene is regarded as an effective preventive measure. This is an update of a previously published review. To assess the short- and long-term success of strategies to improve compliance to recommendations for hand hygiene, and to determine whether an increase in hand hygiene compliance can reduce rates of health care-associated infection. We conducted electronic searches of the Cochrane Register of Controlled Trials, PubMed, Embase, and CINAHL. We conducted the searches from November 2009 to October 2016. We included randomised trials, non-randomised trials, controlled before-after studies, and interrupted time series analyses (ITS) that evaluated any intervention to improve compliance with hand hygiene using soap and water or alcohol-based hand rub (ABHR), or both. Two review authors independently screened citations for inclusion, extracted data, and assessed risks of bias for each included study. Meta-analysis was not possible, as there was substantial heterogeneity across studies. We assessed the certainty of evidence using the GRADE approach and present the results narratively in a 'Summary of findings' table. This review includes 26 studies: 14 randomised trials, two non-randomised trials and 10 ITS studies. Most studies were conducted in hospitals or long-term care facilities in different countries, and collected data from a variety of healthcare workers. Fourteen studies assessed the success of different combinations of strategies recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) to improve hand hygiene compliance. Strategies consisted of the following: increasing the availability of ABHR, different types of education for staff, reminders (written and verbal), different types of performance feedback, administrative support, and staff involvement. Six studies assessed different types of performance feedback, two studies evaluated education, three studies evaluated cues such as signs or scent, and one study assessed placement of ABHR. Observed hand hygiene compliance was measured in all but three studies which reported product usage. Eight studies also reported either infection or colonisation rates. All studies had two or more sources of high or unclear risks of bias, most often associated with blinding or independence of the intervention.Multimodal interventions that include some but not all strategies recommended in the WHO guidelines may slightly improve hand hygiene compliance (five studies; 56 centres) and may slightly reduce infection rates (three studies; 34 centres), low certainty of evidence for both outcomes.Multimodal interventions that include all strategies recommended in the WHO guidelines may slightly reduce colonisation rates (one study; 167 centres; low certainty of evidence). It is unclear whether the intervention improves hand hygiene compliance (five studies; 184 centres) or reduces infection (two studies; 16 centres) because the certainty of this evidence is very low.Multimodal interventions that contain all strategies recommended in the WHO guidelines plus additional strategies may slightly improve hand hygiene compliance (six studies; 15 centres; low certainty of evidence). It is unclear whether this intervention reduces infection rates (one study; one centre; very low certainty of evidence).Performance feedback may improve hand hygiene compliance (six studies; 21 centres; low certainty of evidence). This intervention probably slightly reduces infection (one study; one centre) and colonisation rates (one study; one centre) based on moderate certainty of evidence.Education may improve hand hygiene compliance (two studies; two centres), low certainty of evidence.Cues such as signs or scent may slightly improve hand hygiene compliance (three studies; three centres), low certainty of evidence.Placement of ABHR close to point of use probably slightly improves hand hygiene compliance (one study; one centre), moderate certainty of evidence. With the identified variability in certainty of evidence, interventions, and methods, there remains an urgent need to undertake methodologically robust research to explore the effectiveness of multimodal versus simpler interventions to increase hand hygiene compliance, and to identify which components of multimodal interventions or combinations of strategies are most effective in a particular context.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 141 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 598 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 598 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 101 17%
Student > Bachelor 82 14%
Student > Postgraduate 39 7%
Other 35 6%
Researcher 32 5%
Other 94 16%
Unknown 215 36%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Nursing and Health Professions 129 22%
Medicine and Dentistry 118 20%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 14 2%
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutical Science 13 2%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 11 2%
Other 67 11%
Unknown 246 41%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 258. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 18 December 2023.
All research outputs
#143,585
of 25,595,500 outputs
Outputs from Cochrane database of systematic reviews
#267
of 13,156 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#3,095
of 325,007 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Cochrane database of systematic reviews
#6
of 270 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,595,500 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 99th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 13,156 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 35.8. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 325,007 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 270 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its contemporaries.