Exploring patient participation in reducing health-care-related safety risks

Patient participation in hand hygiene in Bulgarian health care
The age distribution of respondents is shown in Fig. 3.3. The largest proportion (31%)
were in the 31–45 years group, followed by 46–60 (30%) and 75+ (1%).
Fig . 3 .3 . Distribution of respondents by age
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
%
16–30 31–45 46–60 61–75 75+
Source: based on data from the multivariate analysis discussed throughout this chapter and Longtin et al. (17).
Main results from the survey are summarized in the tables below.
The association between patients’ characteristics and their intention to ask their nurses
and physicians whether they washed their hands (Table 3.1) shows lower involvement
with increased age, with substantially reduced intention to ask (72% less for patients
aged between 45 and 60 and 89% less for the age group 61–75 years) compared to
younger age groups.
Patient knowledge levels about HAIs proved to be quite advanced (Table 3.2), with
44.1% able to correctly name the type of infection patients can acquire in hospitals,
73% considering HAI to be a serious problem and 67.8% worried about the risk of
contracting a HAI. Medical staff hand hygiene was identified as the most important
HAI preventive measure (89.8%) and 83.1% indicated the same for patients’ hand
hygiene. All patients thought that nurses wash their hands “always or most of the time”
and 98.3% said the same for doctors. Among those who answered “Yes” to the question
“Are you worried by the risk of HAI?”, the intention to ask their nurses whether they
performed hand hygiene was about 70% lower than in the group who answered “No”.
In the group of patients who answered “Yes” to the question “Do you think that HAIs
are a serious problem?”, the intention to ask their nurses whether they performed hand
hygiene was about 77% lower than in the group who answered “No”. The odds ratios
(ORs) in the other comparisons were not significant.
Data on patients’ willingness to participate in the process of improving medical staff
hand hygiene are summarized in Table 3.3. Most respondents (79.7%) considered that
asking HCWs to wash their hands would prevent the acquisition of an infection in
hospital, but more than half stated they would not feel comfortable asking a nurse or
physician to clean their hands. An explicit invitation from HCWs significantly increased
the intention to ask nurses/physicians from 52% to 86.2%.
years
39