PhD defence Gwen Teesing

An innovative hand hygiene study (RCT) was conducted in 80 nursing homes across the Netherlands. We developed an intervention to improve the compliance of health care workers to hand hygiene rules, including a novel explanation of the WHO’s hand hygiene rules. The intervention included 3 live lessons about hand hygiene, access to an e-learning, posters for the nursing home wards and a hand hygiene photo competition. Policy regarding personal hygiene and hand hygiene materials was also addressed. A randomized study subsequently showed that compliance improved significantly more in the intervention nursing homes (from 12% to 36%) than in the control nursing homes (from 13% to 21%). The intervention was also successful in a Train the Trainer model. The intervention did not lead to a decrease in infectious diseases among the residents of the nursing homes. Materials to carry out the intervention are available at: https://www.zorgvoorbeter.nl/hygiene/handhygiene-verbeteren-verpleeghuis