While it has been shown that hand hygiene adherence rates are affected by the Hawthorne effect — meaning healthcare workers are more likely to wash their hands when they know they are being observed — the effect of just general peer presence on hand hygiene compliance is less well documented.
A recent study published in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology changed that. Researchers at a large university hospital deployed a custom-built, automated hand hygiene monitoring system that served two purposes: detecting if a worker performed hand hygiene upon entering and exiting a patient's room and estimating the location of other healthcare workers with respect to the worker under observation.
Over a 10-day period, a total of 47,694 hand hygiene opportunities were identified. When a worker was alone, adherence rates were just under 21 percent. When other healthcare workers were present, hand hygiene adherence increased to just under 28 percent. Additionally, observed hand hygiene compliance increased when more coworkers were present.
"The presence and proximity of other healthcare workers is associated with higher hand hygiene rates," the researchers concluded.