Sustained effects of a multimodal campaign aiming at hand hygiene improvement on compliance and healthcare-associated infections in a large gynaecology/obstetrics tertiary-care centre in Vietnam

Background Hung Vuong Hospital (HVH) is a 900-bed maternity hospital in Ho-Chi-Minh-City, Vietnam. Due to low compliance, a quasi-experimental, observational study was conducted with the aim to improve hand hygiene. Methods A multimodal promotion strategy was established in 2010 and further developed towards ongoing, repetitive and inventive campaigns including patient participation. Hand hygiene compliance was monitored by direct observation and healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) by applying standard definitions. Results Between 2010 and 2018, a total of 43,711 hand hygiene opportunities were observed. Compliance improved from 21.5% (95%CI: 20.2–22.8%) in 2010 to 75.1% (73.9–76.2%) in 2018 (incidence rate ratio, IRR , 1.10; 95%CI, 1.10–1.11). This was achieved through increasing recourse to alcohol-based hand rubbing. A total of 554,720 women were admitted to HVH during the study period for 353,919 deliveries (198,679 vaginal; 155,240 by C-section) and 257,127 surgical procedures. The HAI-incidence decreased significantly from 1.10 episodes per 1000 patient-days in 2010 to 0.45 per 1000 patient-days in 2018 (IRR 0.85; 95%CI, 0.79–0.90). Significant improvement was observed also for surgical site infections after gynaecological surgery (IRR 0.95; 95%CI, 0.92–0.99) and endometritis after abortion (IRR 0.80; 95%CI, 0.68–0.93). Conclusions A multimodal strategy aiming at behaviour change significantly improved and sustained hand hygiene, which contributed to the reduction of healthcare-associated infections.