Direct Gloving Strategy: A Cluster-randomized Trial

Study Summary

The necessity of Hand hygiene (HH) before donning non-sterile gloves is unknown. Furthermore, because of the additional time required to cleanse hands and then don gloves, as well as the cumbersome nature of applying gloves to recently washed hands, this practice leads to non-compliance with both HH and glove use - placing patients at risk. In a pilot study, the investigators performed a randomized trial of 230 healthcare workers and demonstrated no difference in total bacterial colony counts or identification of pathogenic bacteria from the gloves of persons who either performed HH or did not perform HH prior to putting on non-sterile gloves. If unnecessary, HH before non-sterile glove use wastes valuable time, which might otherwise be spent engaged in direct patient care. And removing this unnecessary step may lead to increased compliance with infection prevention measures. In Aim A, the investigators will perform a multi-center randomized control trial to evaluate the efficacy of a direct gloving strategy to improve compliance with infection prevention practices. In Aim B, the investigators will perform a nested multi-center validation study, where the gloved hands of healthcare workers will be randomly sampled to determine bacterial contamination of non-sterile gloves after donning.

Primary Outcome

Healthcare workers in the usual care group will be recorded as compliant if hand hygiene AND glove use is observed at room entry; healthcare workers in the intervention group only need to have glove use observed to be considered compliant.

Interventions

• BEHAVIORAL Donning Non-Sterile Gloves without HH