Effect of involuntary motivational factors on hand hygiene by health care providers

Abstract

Background and Purpose: Hand hygiene is a low-cost، convenient measure recommended to all health care providers to preventnosocomial infections. Health care staff commonly neglect the importance of hand washing at workplace. This study aimed to evaluatethe effect of involuntary motivational factors on hand hygiene compliance byhealth care providers.Methods: This descriptive analytical study was conducted on 153 health care providers. selected via simple random sampling.Datawere collected using questionnaires designed based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB). Data analysis was performed in SPSS,using descriptive and inferential statistics, Pearson’s correlation-coefficient and T-test.Results: In 80.40% of cases, participants reported that they washed their hands after contact with patients or hospital equipment.Moreover, participants had a positive attitude towards the consequences of hand washing (6.11±0.8) and considered this behavior asa norm (6.12±1.2). Correlations observed between most variables of study were significant (P≤0.001). However, controlling factorshad a less significant effect on hand hygiene intention compared to other variables, such as outcome evaluation, subjective beliefs andnormative beliefs of participants (P≤0.001).Conclusion: According to the results of this study, health care providers have a positive attitude towards hand hygiene compliance.However, due to the impact of involuntary motivational factors on this behavior, it is necessary that medical authorities identify majorstrategies for behavioral change of health care staff through predicting these underlying factors.