Application of the gold standard direct observation tool to estimate hand hygiene compliance among healthcare providers in Dessie referral hospital, Northeast Ethiopia

Hand Hygiene Compliance at Two Tertiary Hospitals in Freetown, Sierra Leone, in 2021: A Cross-Sectional Study

“…Second, hand hygiene compliance, whether with handwash or ABHR, was much higher after contact or exposure to patients, their surroundings or body fluids compared with before patient contact and before aseptic procedures. These findings align completely with previous reports from other African countries [ 11 , 12 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 26 ], as well as the report from the two secondary hospitals in Sierra Leone [ 19 ]. It is well recognised in these examples that health care workers are more likely to perform hand hygiene actions with self-protected opportunities (namely, after touching patients or after body fluid exposure) than with patient protective opportunities (namely, before touching a patient or before an aseptic technique).…”

“…In our study, nurses and nursing students performed better than doctors, with laboratory technicians being the worst. These findings are similar to those reported elsewhere [ 21 , 23 ], although in the other Sierra Leone study, in one hospital, doctors outperformed nurses, while in the other hospital, the opposite was found [ 19 ]. Although hand hygiene products had been widely distributed within each hospital prior to the study, we did not investigate their availability or the support structures, such as hand hygiene posters or health care worker leadership in IPC, all of which may have influenced the take-up of hand hygiene practices.…”

“…In these two hospitals, despite the reasonably constant supply of soap and ABHR, hand hygiene compliance was found to be inferior at 19% overall. Hand hygiene compliance in our two tertiary hospitals was much higher than in several recent reports from tertiary care facilities in Nigeria, Ethiopia and Kenya, where compliance levels ranged from 17% to 31% [ 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 ]. Our findings, however, were very similar to observations made in a University Teaching Hospital complex in southwest Nigeria and in over 100 health facilities in Ghana, where compliance averaged at about 50% [ 25 , 26 ].…”

“…This was different in the other Sierra Leone study where the hand hygiene compliance level in the Paediatric wards was inferior to many other wards [ 19 ]. In other countries, little difference was found between departments and wards [ 21 , 23 ]. In our study, nurses and nursing students performed better than doctors, with laboratory technicians being the worst.…”

Hand hygiene compliance and associated factor among nurses working in public hospitals of Hararghe zones, Oromia region, eastern Ethiopia

“…The finding of this study on hand hygiene compliance is higher with studies in Gondar University hospital (16.5%) (15), Gondar public primary hospitals (14.9%) (13), Dessie referral Hospital (17.6%) (22), Debre Birhan referral hospital (22.0%) (17), Wachemo University teaching hospital, in which hand hygiene compliance was reported at 9.2% (23) and a study conducted in Nigeria (31%) (24). In contrast, it was lower than previous findings from a general hospital in Addis Ababa (50.4%) (18).…”