Strategies for Promoting Hand Hygiene Compliance on Inpatient Psychiatric Units

To identify recommendations to improve staff and patient adherence to hand hygiene best practices on inpatient psychiatric units, a survey of the literature was conducted to distill the most effective recommendations. Several interventions have been identified that have met with success in previous outbreaks of infectious disease. These interventions require little more than basic nursing skills: education, time and attention, and knowledge of one's patients. The literature suggests that strict hand hygiene and infection control processes can be implemented to the benefi t of an inpatient psychiatric ward, but only with significant adjustments for staff and patients.