M-L McLaws

Predicting intention to use condoms in homosexual men: an application and extension of the theory of reasoned action.

n A questionnaire based upon the Theory of Reasoned Action was developed and tested to identify predictors of intention to use condoms. Behavioral intentions, attitudes and subjective normative beliefs, behavioral norms, and age of HIV-positive status were included on the questionnaire. Internal consistency of the four components was high, with Cronbachs alpha coefficients of 0.76-0.87. Qualitative data were collected over 2 months from 194 homosexual men who participated in Sydneys homosexual community. Participants aged 17-64 years of mean age 29.5 attended individual interviews or small focus groups to discuss their views concerning condom use. 15% reported having tested HIV-positive, 59% tested negative, and 26% reported not knowing their HIV serostatus. According to logistic modeling, the significant predictors of intentions to use a condom were attitudes and behavioral norms, while HIV antibody positive status and age directly influence behavioral intentions to use a condom. About 50% of men over age 25 years intended to use a condom, irrespective of HIV status. Overall, 59% of men aged 25 years and younger intended to use a condom; 22% of HIV-positive men and 63% of HIV-negative men.n

Cambodia: the first national study of antibiotic prescribing and resistance using mixed methods approach.

Antibiotic resistance is present globally. Contributing factors in Cambodia include self-medication by the community, uncontrolled sale of antibiotics and unregulated antibiotic use in food animals.

Using the theory of planned behavior to identify predictors of handwashing among Iranian healthcare workers

The incidence of healthcare associated infections in a surgical ward in Shiraz has beenÂxa0established as 18%Âxa0with associated costs of approx US150,000. Healthcare workers (HCWs) had acceptable levels of knowledge and attitude about hand hygiene but poor self-reported practices. We used the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to identify predictors of handwashing to underpin a theory-driven intervention.

Improving hand hygiene: thinking outside the bottle

Hand hygiene is an integral aspect of infection control. The provision of Alcohol Based Hand Rub (ABHR) gel at patient bedsides has made effective hand hygiene (HH) more convenient for Health Care Workers (HCWs) by overcoming two of the main ‘barriers’ to HH- time and distance to sinks, by placing the bottles at the point of patient care. The ABHR bottles, being novel, ubiquitous and usually brightly coloured, were originally very effective in cuing HCWs to observe HH. In the years since their introduction, these attributes have not translated into HH rates much above 60%. This suggests that AHR bottles may not have retained the cue to memory they originally held.

Hand hygiene campaigns in a low resource context: a Vietnam perspective

Bach Mai tertiary hospital is a 1900 bed facility in Viet Nam. Previous hospital hand hygiene programs proved unsuccessful which prompted the director to launch an intensive hand hygiene campaign on 5th May 2009 to reduce health-care associated infection (HAI) using World Health Organization (WHO) tools. We would like to present the results and challenges of the Bach Mai hospital hand hygiene campaign.

Comparison of hand hygiene opportunities (HHOS) between a us study and in acute care facilities in three other countries

There is a lack of published data on HHOs/patient/day across countries. While HH compliance rates are often published based on observations by auditors, some recognised disadvantages are training required, valuable hours taken to collect representative samples and the Hawthorne effect. Emerging technologies have potential to improve data reliability, timeliness and density. A key challenge is to establish an accepted “denominator” (HHOs) in the compliance equation.

How to get doctors to hand hygiene: nudge nudge

The Nudge Theory has been widely used to improve healthy behavior [1,2] and works as an external cue to memory [3]. The Nudge Theory is based on behavioural economics models that has been applied to move communities towards rational targeted purchasing and ecological preferred behaviour patterns [1,2]. Consumers have been nudged successfully towards lower electricity purchasing patterns through displays of their past and current purchasing pattern.

Malaysia: can ABHR purchasing data used to measure hand hygiene compliance?

After three years of mandatory quarterly hand hygiene audits in public Malaysian hospitals the burden of auditing is impacting the support and potential sustainability of the program. We looked to alternative methods to routinely measure compliance because human auditing has decreased validity and reliability inherent in the methodology.

P157: Face-touching: a frequent habit for self-inoculation of transmissible infections?

Touching the mucous membranes of the nose and mouth is a potential for transmission and acquisition of a range of infections. Infection may be spread to others after inoculating ones own hands during face-touching or infections may be acquired via contaminated hands after face-touching.

P102: Healthcare workers’ hand contamination levels and antimicrobial efficacy of different hand hygiene methods used in a Vietnamese hospital

The quality of water in Viet Nam for handwashing with soap or other disinfectant solutions is unknown. We assessed the risk for hand contamination and compared the efficacy of five hand hygiene methods to remove bacterial contamination in a tertiary Vietnamese hospital.