Paper Example. Critique of Hand Hygiene

With the increasing spread of communicable diseases, it is becoming increasingly significant to be cautious about hand hygiene. Hands can be the platform through which the germs can spread. Children are the most vulnerable to underlying risks due to their low immunity and predisposition to dirt. Hence, the hands should be kept clean at all times through washing.

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Several articles have been written about hand hygiene and how to comply with the guidelines given. Hence, this paper is a critique of one of the articles, namely, Improving children's and their visitor's hand hygiene compliance written by Hardie, Segal, Nerlich, and Randle.

Research Problem/Purpose

Although numerous interventions have been applied to make the healthcare of workers' hands better, the children and those who visit them have been neglected. There has been no compliance with the two groups of people, making them vulnerable to infections associated with healthcare (Hardie, Segal, Nerlich & Randle, 2019). Non-communicable diseases and infections have, therefore, become prevalent among the children as they get them from the visitors. Once the infections or the disease affect the child, this can result in death or serious illness that can paralyze the child. There is hence the need to emphasize compliance of hand hygiene among children and their visitors.

The study will be critical in solving the spread of the illnesses since compliance hand hygiene is a practice that is evidence-based and is effective. Being an issue involving diseases, the study fits well in the nursing context. Besides, the authors used the existing knowledge on hand hygiene, the spread of the diseases, and the guidelines provided on how to curb the problem (Hardie et al., 2019). In this regard, the study placed the study problem within the context of the existing knowledge.

Review of the Literature

The content of the literature review contained information on hand hygiene specifically in children and visitors. From the literature, children can easily get infectious diseases since they are more predisposed to germs. Besides, children are less likely to maintain hand hygiene. Children also come into contact with the hands of many people such as visitors and healthcare workers (Hardie et al., 2019). The sick people in the hospital also expose the children to germs. In this regard, the hospital environment is a potential source of harm to children and patients in general. Hence, children are highly vulnerable to infectious diseases than anybody else due to repeated person-to-person contact.

A plethora of literature suggests that the spread and transmission of infectious diseases can be reduced by determining the routes that expose an individual to the infection and hot it relates to their natural behavior. Hand hygiene is considered the best means of reducing the spread of associated healthcare infections (Hardie et al., 2019). Related interventions are essential in ensuring people conform to the norm of hand hygiene. The study relied on current references most of which were published within the past five years and three quarters published from 2000 to 2019. However. Some literature references are old but this date back to days when hand hygiene originated. Hence, despite being old, they contributed significant information about hand hygiene.

Theoretical Framework

The study clearly stated the various variables that formed part of the research. All concepts were defined and were within the nursing field. The hospital-acquired infections are purely related to nursing and point out to health-related issues. Infections arise from bloodstream infections, and bacterial, fungal and viral pathogens. It is, therefore, easy to identify the critical issues that the researcher intends to adopt.

Although the study is related to nursing and adds knowledge to the field of nursing, it lacks a clearly defined and outlined theoretical framework. It is, therefore, possible to propose a theoretical framework based on theories such as the theory of planned behavior (Hardie et al., 2019). To overcome hospital-acquired infections, one needs to apply the theory of planned behavior which involves managing one's behavior for an effective outcome.

Variables/Hypotheses/Questions/Assumptions

The intervention used in the study was an educational intervention on hand hygiene. The intervention was a video or a Glo-yo. There were two groups, one that received the intervention and one that did not receive the intervention (control group) (Hardie et al., 2019). In this regard, the dependent variable was hand hygiene compliance and the independent variable was the educational intervention. Interventions include the use of Glo-yo and video and these two form the independent variable. It is the intervention that triggers a change to hand hygiene compliance. As a result, the study sought to establish how hand hygiene compliance varied when educational intervention was used.

The study did not give the operational definitions of the variables given, and as a result, it is not possible to establish if there are concrete or measurable (Hardie et al., 2019). Besides, there was no research question or hypothesis explicitly stated, and one can only deduce from the information provided in the text. The researchers found that the use of educational intervention is essential in hand hygiene and as a tendency to improve hand hygiene. The findings are very useful in the nursing field as it adds new knowledge to the body of existing knowledge.

Methodology

The study employed both quantitative and qualitative research designs. The study used a quantitative research design to explore the research questions and objectives. The observational study was conducted to explore the hand hygiene compliance before and after the introduction of educational interventions (Hardie et al., 2019). There was also the qualitative part of the study, which involved the use of questionnaires and interviews.

The study was conducted in a teaching and referral hospital in East Midlands, where six pediatric wards formed the sample of the study. To isolate the six wards used, the study used a random sampling technique (Hardie et al., 2019). Ethical standards were put into consideration since the authors sought approval from relevant bodies. The study was approved by two bodies namely Research and innovation department, NHS and Research Ethical Committee East Midlands Research NHS.

Data Analysis

Data obtained using the observation study design was subjected to SPSS statistical software, and GraphPad Prism6 for analysis purpose (Hardie et al., 2019). Parameters analyzed include the simple frequency counts and the Chi-square tests. The responses obtained from the responses were groups into categories depending on the questions and then a comparison drawn using the grouped themes and the simple frequency counts.

The analysis of collected data revealed that after the introduction of the education intervention, compliance to hand hygiene increased by 21.4% (Hardie et al., 2019). While 21.4% was the overall increase, the compliance for the children's use of hand hygiene was 40.8% and 50.8% for the visitors. The p for the results was less than 0.001 hence showing significance difference (Hardie et al., 2019). There was also variance in compliance among the five moments of hygiene. The after fluid body exposure had the highest compliance with a p less than 0.001. The qualitative analysis from the questionnaires revealed that educational interventions increased the awareness of maintaining hand hygiene. For those who used educational interventions, the awareness increased by 69% and 57%, while those who never used the educational intervention the level of hand hygiene was 50% (Hardie et al., 2019). This indicates that educational interventions play a critical role in increasing awareness about hand hygiene and consequently increasing the compliance rate.

Summary/Conclusions, Implications, and Recommendations

One of the strengths of the study is that it found a correlation between the educational interventions and the hand hygiene compliance among children and visitors. The study was conducted in a hospital and is, therefore, evidence-based with reliable results. The findings of the study can be generalized to other populations since hand hygiene is not dependent on the type of population in reducing the spread of infections (Hardie et al., 2019). What matters is that individuals have compiled with hygienic standards set forth. Hence, any population such as adults, female, and males can all use educational intervention to increase compliance with hand hygiene and consequently improve their awareness. Failure to use proper hand hygiene practice has serious implications (Le, Lehman, Nguyen & Craig, 2019).

The study concluded that the use of educational interventions significantly increases compliance to hand hygiene among visitors and children. Such findings are significantly essential in the field of nursing since it provides better ways of improving hygiene and consequently reducing the prevalence of infections. The reduction of infections greatly reduces the burden that the nurses have in treating the related diseases and illnesses.

References

Hardie, K., Segal, J., Nerlich, B., & Randle, J. (2019). Improving children's and their visitors' hand hygiene compliance. Journal of Infection Prevention, https://doi.org/10.1177/1757177419892065

Le, C., Lehman, E., Nguyen, T., & Craig, T. (2019). Hand hygiene compliance study at a large central hospital in Vietnam. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16(4), 607. doi: 10.3390/ijerph16040607