Impact of conducting hand hygiene audits during the COVID-19 pandemic in an intensive care unit at a tertiary care centre in Kerala, India

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic era had witnessed an upsurge of healthcare -associated infections (HAI) in COVID intensive care units (ICUs), which can be reduced by following proper hand hygiene (HH) practice. Performing HH auditing in COVID ICUs and providing timely feedback to the stake holders is crucial to reduce HAIs. Methods: From July 2021 to December 2021, HH auditing was conducted in COVID ICUs. Hand hygiene (HH) complete adherence rate (HHCAR), HH partial adherence rate (HHPAR) and HH total adherence rate (HHTAR) were analysed. Profession -specific HHTAR and moment -specific HHTAR (for each WHO moment) were also calculated. Results: HHCAR, HHPAR and HHTAR were found to be 47%, 19% and 66%, respectively. There was a significant increase in the monthly HHTAR from 62.2% to 72.2% (p<.001). The profession -specific hand -hygiene adherence rate (HHAR) was found to be highest among nurses (67%), and the moment -specific HHAR of WHO -moments 2 (90%) and 3 (94.8%) had the highest HH adherence. Conclusions: Auditing HH and providing timely feedback significantly improved HH adherence. The greatest need now is to regularly conduct HH auditing in COVID locations of all healthcare facilities to reduce the HAI rate among the COVID-19 infected patients in ICUs.