ERIC Number: EJ1085848
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2015-Dec
Pages: 12
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0268-1153
EISSN: N/A
Understanding the Determinants of Australian Hospital Nurses' Hand Hygiene Decisions Following the Implementation of a National Hand Hygiene Initiative
White, Katherine M.; Starfelt, Louise C.; Jimmieson, Nerina L.; Campbell, Megan; Graves, Nicholas; Barnett, Adrian G.; Cockshaw, Wendell; Gee, Phillip; Page, Katie; Martin, Elizabeth; Brain, David; Paterson, David
Health Education Research, v30 n6 p959-970 Dec 2015
Hand hygiene is the primary measure in hospitals to reduce the spread of infections, with nurses experiencing the greatest frequency of patient contact. The "5 critical moments" of hand hygiene initiative has been implemented in hospitals across Australia, accompanied by awareness-raising, staff training and auditing. The aim of this study was to understand the determinants of nurses' hand hygiene decisions, using an extension of a common health decision-making model, the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), to inform future health education strategies to increase compliance. Nurses from 50 Australian hospitals (n = 2378) completed standard TPB measures (attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control [PBC], intention) and the extended variables of group norm, risk perceptions (susceptibility, severity) and knowledge (subjective, objective) at Time 1, while a sub-sample (n = 797) reported their hand hygiene behaviour 2 weeks later. Regression analyses identified subjective norm, PBC, group norm, subjective knowledge and risk susceptibility as the significant predictors of nurses' hand hygiene intentions, with intention and PBC predicting their compliance behaviour. Rather than targeting attitudes which are already very favourable among nurses, health education strategies should focus on normative influences and perceptions of control and risk in efforts to encourage hand hygiene adherence.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Nurses, Hospitality Occupations, Hygiene, Sanitation, Program Implementation, National Standards, Compliance (Legal), Regression (Statistics), Norms, Health Education, Health Behavior, Health Promotion, Behavior Theories, Attribution Theory, Decision Making
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Australia
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A