HEALTHCARE HYGIENE
What are the barriers to hand hygiene in healthcare?
Too many patients, too busy to wash, too few handwashing stations – any number of factors can deter healthcare staff from washing their hands when they need to do so. Essity’s Liam Mynes looks at ways of encouraging better handwashing in healthcare.
It should be obvious. Hospitals are a hotbed of infections and viruses, so it is clear that anyone who works in one or visits one needs to ensure that their hand hygiene is up to scratch.
However, the reality is very different. Study after study reveals that many medical workers are not washing their hands at key points during their working day. According to a survey carried out last year, around 44% of hospital washroom users in general regularly skip the handwashing process.
The World Health Organization guidelines regarding healthcare staff urge workers to adopt its ‘My Five Moments of Hand Hygiene’, which states that they should wash their hands before touching a patient, before carrying out any aseptic procedure, after exposure to body fluid, after touching a patient and after touching the patient’s surroundings.
There is no such guidance for visitors and patients, but hand sanitiser dispensers and handwashing prompts are now liberally supplied in hospitals to encourage good practice there. So why are so many people still failing to wash their hands in these institutions?
Heavy workloads and the high-pressure nature of healthcare work are factors that can push hand hygiene down the list of priorities for some healthcare professionals. When faced with a choice of tending immediately to a critically ill patient or carrying out a lengthy handwash, some might feel tempted to skimp on their hand hygiene. Today’s chronic staff shortages and perennially busy wards
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only add to the pressure on healthcare workers to act quickly in life-threatening situations.
Frequent handwashing has also been directly linked to dermatitis which can result in irritation, redness, cracking and blistering. A study carried out by the University of Manchester in 2012 revealed that dermatitis in healthcare workers had increased by 4.5 times since 1996 in the wake of hand hygiene campaigns launched to reduce infections such as MRSA. A painful skin condition is highly likely to deter many healthcare professionals from washing their hands at regular intervals.
Another reason for poor hand hygiene compliance is the fact that the right facilities are not always conveniently located. Healthcare staff claim that on some occasions, soap and paper supplies are found to have run out just when they are needed.
Various studies also reveal a general lack of understanding on the part of some healthcare workers about the importance of hand hygiene. Some people believe that wearing surgical gloves in medical settings should render handwashing unnecessary, but a scientific paper published in May 2025 revealed that many healthcare workers harbour misconceptions about glove use.
Some staff members appear to be unaware of the fact that gloves are not an absolute barrier to bacteria, and that they still need to wash their hands before putting them on and after taking them off.
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