• Health
  • Science
  • U.S.
  • Technology
  • Business
  • World
  • Politics
  • Entertainment
  • Sports

Building a Better World

News and information

  • Home
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact Us
  • Our Team

Alarming: Doctors’ hand-washing habits lessen when not being watched

June 12, 2016 By Jenny Marchal

Alarming: Doctors’ hand-washing habits lessen when not being watched

The study reveals many health care workers are not complying with hygiene regulations as often as they should.

Hand washing behavior differs depending on whether a person is being watched and this also includes health care workers according to a new study.

Hand hygiene is one of the most essential practices in health care environments lessening the chances of harmful bacteria and toxins from spreading to vulnerable areas and is widely practiced in hospitals across the world. However, according to a recent study carried out at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center (SCVMC) in San Jose, California, health care workers’ behavoir on hand washing changed dramatically depending on whether they were being evaluated or not.

It seems human behavior is hard to change. The research carried out involved observing hospital staff by using a set of Infection Prevention (IP) nurses and young volunteers. Each observed the staff for hand-washing habits and found when being watched by IP nurses, staff washed their hands according to hygiene rules around 57 percent of the time while this dipped to 22 percent when a volunteer was present, as explained in an ABC News report.

“[We noticed] a very consistent trend that our Infection Prevention nurses were seeing something different than what volunteers were seeing,” noted Maricris Niles, an infection prevention analyst at SCVMC.

“When we would come on the floor, I would notice that the nurses or providers were not using the alcohol,” Lisa Hansford, one of the IP nurses explained. “Then they would glance up and see me and bend over backwards to lather up.”

The findings, presented at the Association for Professionals Infection Control and Epidemiology meeting in North Carolina this weekend, highlight the need to carry out stringent interventions to raise the rates of hygiene in hospitals to an acceptable level. One way would be to publish and show publicly all hygiene adherence data to cultivate competition between different hospitals and departments.

The study is not to show up dedicated health care workers who work hard day and night as many need to wash their hands hundreds of times during an eight hour shift. It’s down to the difficulty of changing human behavior and the results hope that strategies can be implemented in a way that will cause people to automatically reach for the alcohol dispensers rather like putting on a seatbelt in a car.

 

Sharing

Facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

Filed Under: Front Page, Health

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Follow Us

Facebookrss

Search:

Recent Posts

  • NASA’s InSight spacecraft makes important course correction May 26, 2018
  • Scientists outraged at latest Trump decision May 15, 2018
  • Huge uproar erupts over major incident at Utah park May 13, 2018
  • Incredible moon discovery stuns scientists May 12, 2018
  • Authorities shocked by discovery about common painkiller May 6, 2018
  • Outrageous crocodile experiment stuns scientists May 5, 2018
  • Great Barrier Reef is too quiet, scientists say May 1, 2018
  • Massive Hiroshima bomb discovery shocks scientists May 1, 2018
  • Earth will be slammed by massive asteroid April 29, 2018
  • Teens are doing something incredibly alarming in schools April 29, 2018
  • Huge discovery in Tasmania stuns scientists April 28, 2018
  • Shocking discovery in New Jersey stuns authorities April 22, 2018
  • Huge volcanic explosion could wipe out the United States April 21, 2018
  • Huge controversy erupts over world’s hottest pepper April 15, 2018
  • SpaceX is about to do something astonishing April 15, 2018

Copyright © 2021 Jones Kilmartin Group, LLC · Metro Pro Theme On Genesis Framework · WordPress