Measuring the Self-Efficacy of Health Professionals for Practicing Hand Hygiene and Using Gloves: Development and Validation of an Instrument

Adherence to hand hygiene procedures and the use of gloves is a problem that deserves to be analyzed from an individual and organizational point of view. For this, we aim to develop and validate an instrument for measuring the self-efficacy of health professionals for practicing hand hygiene and using gloves. We evaluated the metric properties of validity and reliability for measuring the self-efficacy of health professionals for practicing hand hygiene and using gloves. Fifteen health and education professionals formed the judges committee to construct the instrument for measuring the self-efficacy of health professionals for practicing hand hygiene and using gloves. Moreover, 362 nursing professionals participated in this study that was carried out from 2017 to 2020. The construct validity by known groups was confirmed by comparing the means of self-efficacy of the self-efficacy of health professionals for practicing hand hygiene and using gloves with the variables sex and unit of activity. The convergent construct validity showed a weak correlation between the scores of the self-efficacy of health professionals for practicing hand hygiene and using gloves instrument, and the perceived general self-efficacy scale. This instrument is easy to apply and can be used in the assessment of behavioral determinants, regarding hand hygiene and the use of gloves, in other health professionals, considering the generalization and scope of the items.