Introduction: Healthcare associated infections (HCAIs) represent a major public health issue. In Europe, 37 000 patients are affected annually by some sort of HCAI. HCAIs are preventable, and hand hygiene is an important measure in their prevention. During daily clinical practice, hands of healthcare workers (HCWs) are exposed to surfaces, various substances and objects; therefore, proper hand hygiene is the first step in preventing microorganism transmission. Aim: To determine the HCWs hand hygiene compliance with the guidelines of the World Health Organization through a systematic review of literature. Methods: A systematic review of literature based on the PRISMA statement guidelines using the PubMed database in a search for articles that evaluate the hand hygiene compliance among HCWs. Results: Six articles were taken into consideration by the availability of full-text articles and years of publication between 2010 and 2020. Results showed that compliance rate was the highest in studies that implemented World Health Organisation’s Multimodal Hand Hygiene Improvement Strategy or its modifications. Conclusion: The multimodal approach, as World Health Organisation’s multimodal strategy or its local modifications, has been shown as the best approach addressing the problem of hand hygiene compliance. Further areas for research include finding a better method of measuring compliance, technology-driven solutions for both delivery of alcohol-based handrub and monitoring of its use, a greater focus on evaluating proper hand hygiene techniques, and insuring longer-term programs of training and education to achieve the best effectiveness of hand hygiene compliance among HCWs.

Introduction. Healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs) represent a major public health problem. Inadequate oral hygiene in intensive care units has been recognized as a critical issue for the occurrence of one of these infections -ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP). Although literature suggests diverse oral care measures for ICU patients, the effectiveness of each is still a subject for further trials.Aim. The purpose of this paper is to determine the association between diverse oral care measures and the incidence of ventilator-associated pneumonia. Methods.A systematic review of literature in the PubMed database that evaluates the performance of diverse oral care measures and their impact in reducing the incidence of VAP. The keywords used as search terms were: oral hygiene, ventilator-associated pneumonia, intensive care unit and nursing.Results. Four articles in total were taken into consideration in accordance with the availability of full-text articles and years of publication between 2009 and 2019. Performance results of diverse oral care measures haven't shown statistically significant differences, but the implementation of oral care as a preventive measure against VAP showed a significant role in lower incidence rates. Conclusion.The results of the systematic literature review confirmed the importance of oral care in lowering the incidence rate of VAP. However, significant differences have been noted between the efficiency of diverse oral care measures and the incidence rate of VAP.