HAND HYGI ENE
Good skin health vital for hand hygiene compliance
Healthcare workers’ hands have always been at the forefront of infection prevention, but one of the most common barriers to good hand hygiene technique among healthcare professionals is skin irritation. Chris Wakefield explains how a combination approach, which addresses occupational dermatitis, can improve adherence.
Hand hygiene has always been an important infection prevention strategy in hospitals and healthcare settings. Indeed, it has been proven to reduce the spread of healthcare associated infections (HCAIs) by up to 50%, lower the risk of antimicrobial resistance, and has been a critical weapon in the fight against COVID-19.
Although there is a heightened focus on hand – and surface – hygiene, dangerous pathogens are still able to enter healthcare settings fairly easily. Just take a mobile phone as an example. This belonging goes almost everywhere with its owner and is placed on a variety of different surfaces at home, work, in pockets or at the bottom of a handbag. But does its owner clean it, or their hands, after each time it is picked up or swiped?
In fact, research has shown that
smartphones could be covered in up to ten times as much bacteria as a toilet seat, and furthermore, people check them every 12 minutes of the waking day. When you consider that contaminated hands can sequentially transfer some viruses to up to seven surfaces, and that fourteen people can be contaminated by touching the same object one after the other, like a lift button, screening curtain, or door handle, it’s clear to see how infections can spread so easily. What’s more, germs can live on surfaces for days, weeks and even months – norovirus, for example, can live on surfaces for up to 12 days, while studies suggest that COVID-19 may persist on surfaces for a few hours or up to several days.1 by the pandemic, awareness of the link
Driven
between hand hygiene and health has risen significantly during the past year, and for the first time, hand washing and sanitising has been practised diligently by the wider public as well as healthcare workers. There is no doubt, however, that the latter must practise it far more frequently than workers in most other industries. One [pre-pandemic] study showed that healthcare staff clean their hands as many as 42 times per shift and up to 15.2 times per hour.2
If hands
are not washed or sanitised frequently enough, vulnerable patients will be put in further danger, or staff risk picking up an infection themselves, resulting in them spreading germs at an increased rate. This is particularly pertinent now, as seasonal viruses like influenza and norovirus peak and we live with coronavirus in general circulation.
Barriers to hand hygiene Yet there are still challenges when it comes to hand hygiene in healthcare. Compliance is problematic worldwide for a variety of reasons. Self-reported factors for poor adherence range from having insufficient time, to the patient needs taking priority, and, worryingly, a lack of knowledge.3 However, an increasingly common barrier is skin irritation and dermatitis.
This is perhaps unsurprising, given the number of people who consider themselves to have sensitive skin. One study found that 60-70% of women and 50-60% of men reported having it to some degree.4
Other
research shows that up to 18,000 people a year suffer from occupational dermatitis5
,
and this number is likely to have risen significantly in 2020, due to the increased rate of handwashing. In fact, recent reports have shown that 59% of healthcare workers seen in
MAY 2021
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