Date Available
4-17-2023
Year of Publication
2023
Degree Name
Doctor of Nursing Practice
Committee Chair
Dr. Karen Stefaniak
Clinical Mentor
Dr. Rebecca Dotson
Committee Member
Dr. Brandy Mathews
Abstract
Abstract
Background/Purpose: Healthcare organizations are responsible for ensuring that healthcare workers adhere to effective hand hygiene (HH) protocols, and ample research exists on the best methods for monitoring and encouraging compliance. Despite the importance of HH for infection prevention, there has been little focus on patient hand hygiene (PHH). The purpose of this pilot project was to focus on improving nursing staff’s knowledge and attitudes about PHH with the expectation of showing a correlation between these factors and an increase in the performance PHH.
Methods: The project used a quasi-experimental study that took place on one hospital unit at the University of Kentucky Good Samaritan Hospital using a pre-test and post-test design to measure nursing staff’s knowledge and attitudes before and after an educational intervention. A convenience sample consisting of 20 full time/PRN nursing staff of UK Good Samaritan Hospital 5 Main was included in this project.
The Evidence Based Practice Model: The Iowa Model Revised and the accompanying implementation plan were the evidence-based practice model used for this study due to its proven usefulness among novice and expert clinicians that provide direct patient care (Buckwalter, 2017; Cullen et al., 2022; Tucker et al., 2021).
Results: Nine participants completed the pre-survey and 11 completed the post-survey for a total of 20 responses for the pre- and post-survey combined. Of the twenty responses, only five pre- and post-survey responses could be linked. Due to the limited number of linked responses data were analyzed using both an independent and paired t-tests. The results of these two tests did not indicate statistical significance. Although non-significant, marginal increases in mean scores were observed for the majority of the items on the post-survey.
Conclusions: Although the pre- and post-intervention survey scores were not statistically significant, the mean and standard deviation values did demonstrate a slight increase. Due to the small sample size further research is recommended.
Recommended Citation
Moore, Bonita, "Implementing an Educational Intervention Aimed at Nursing Staff to Improve Patient Hand Hygiene" (2023). DNP Projects. 419.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/dnp_etds/419
