Hand hygiene compliance in the pre-hospital setting

Hand hygiene is one of the most important measures to prevent the transmission of infection (World Health Organization (WHO), 2009). Hands can become a reservoir of microorganisms during practice. Performing effective hand hygiene is necessary to protect both the health professional and the patient, thereby contributing to safer and higher quality care (Loveday et al, 2014).

Health professionals' compliance with hand hygiene remains a universal problem in health care (Gould et al, 2017; Sunley et al, 2018). While poor hand hygiene is prevalent in the inpatient and hospital environments, these behaviours may be shared with emergency medical services (EMS) personnel. However, hand hygiene practices have been studied less in EMS despite the fact that they play a significant part in caring for patients in the healthcare sector (Desai et al, 2017).