Alcohol based rub improves hand hygiene compliance

According to a study published in Antimicrobial Resistance & Infection Control, the effect of alcohol-based surgical hand rub improved the quality and reduced the duration of the hand preparation, being equally effective for the prevention of surgical site infections.

Researchers conducted a study at a tertiary-care university hospital in the US from April 1 2017 to November 1 2017. They studied 534 surgical hand preparation events, 56 cardiac and orthopedic surgical teams and 231 patients who underwent surgical procedures. Alcohol based hand rubs were made available in the operating theatre.

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For the 33 participants with full data available, they observed full compliance with all the steps predicted in the WHO technique in 0.03 per cent of the events in the pre-intervention period and in 36.36 per cent of the events in the intervention period. Additionally, the duration of the hand preparation was 2.7 minutes in the intervention period, compared to 4.8 minutes in the pre-intervention period.