Japanese Society for Infection Prevention and Control-Online Journal

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Effectiveness of Hygienic Intervention in the Prevention of Infectious Diseases in Infants Attending an In-hospital Nursery

Yoko TSUCHIDA, Ryota OCHIAI, Yuri TOKUNAGA, Fumie FUKASE and Setsuko WATABE
Nursing Care and Infection Control, Department of Nursing, Graduate School of Medicine, Yokohama City University

Background: Infection control is important in in-hospital nurseries. There is a concern that healthcare workers who are parents may become carriers and transmit infectious diseases to infants and patients.
Study objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a hygienic intervention to prevent infectious diseases from spreading among infants and nursery teachers at an in-hospital nursery.
Methodology: A hygienic intervention consisting of education on hand hygiene, cough etiquette, and environmental cleaning was implemented for infants and nursery teachers at the in-hospital nursery. Hand hygiene adherence of infants and nursery teachers, before and after the intervention, were compared using the χ² test. The relative risk of contracting an infectious disease and the percentage of infection-related absence among infants, before and after the intervention, were also assessed.
Results: Consent was obtained for 29 infants (100% consent rate) and from 22 nursery teachers (92% consent rate). The hand hygiene adherence of the infants significantly improved from 78.2%, before the intervention, to 97.4%, after the intervention (p<0.001). Hand hygiene adherence of the nursery teachers also significantly improved from 37.6%, before the intervention, to 78.2%, after the intervention (p<0.001). On the other hand, the incidence of infectious diseases among the infants was 11.47/1,000 person-days, before the intervention, and 11.31/1,000 person-days, after the intervention, and the relative risk with its 95% confidence interval was 0.99 (0.53-1.83). The percentage of absenteeism due to infection was 2.17% before, and 2.75% after the intervention, and the relative risk with its 95% confidence interval was 1.26 (0.24-6.68).
Conclusions: The hygienic interventions implemented in this study did not change the incidence of infectious diseases and absenteeism among the infants, but improved hand hygiene adherence among infants and nursery teachers in an in-hospital nursery.

Key words：in-hospital nursery, nursery teacher, infant, hand hygiene

e-mail: t176616g＠yokohama-cu.ac.jp

Received: April 14, 2020
Accepted: September 25, 2020

36 (1)：28─34,2021