Topic Search Strategy
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Clinical Question
Description of the Problem
Hospital-acquired infections (HAI) are a major concern in hospitals worldwide. These infections are usually not present or incubating at the time the patient is admitted to the health care facility. Hospital-acquired infections lead to an increased burden for hospitals, patients, and healthcare workers providing services to the patients. For proper prevention of the spread of hospital-acquired infections, all people who come in contact with a patient are required to conduct thorough hand hygiene. However, many hospitals fail to observe proper hand hygiene, which is a crucial standard care practice that can help prevent the spread of pathogen transmission and curb the increasing cases of hospital-acquired infections. As a result, appropriate hand hygiene is not performed with the expected consistency in the healthcare environment. And this has threatened the lives of both patients and healthcare workers. Sadeghi-Moghaddam et al. (2015) stated that even though proper hand hygiene is the most effective approach to preventing hospital-acquired infections, compliance among healthcare providers is still low.
Significance of the problem.
According to Stone (2009), healthcare-acquired infections account for approximately 90,000 deaths in the United States. The country spends 28-45 billion dollars each year to deal with increasing cases of hospital-acquired infections among the patients and healthcare workers. Since hospital-acquired infections are preventable, it is important to conduct evidence-based research to help hospitals identify the appropriate measures to overcome this health problem. Therefore, hospital-acquired infections is a major concern for healthcare providers as they spend a lot of time as well as resources targeting the problem. Healthcare facilities are best known for promoting health and enhancing individuals’ wellbeing by providing treatment for patients with diverse conditions. Patients come to the hospital to get better, not worse. However, when a patient gets a hospital-acquired infection while in the facility, it contributes to further negative effects on his or her health. Hospital-acquired infections also complicate the treatment processes by increasing the length of patient stay and causing the hospital to incur further costs. Healthcare workers have the responsibility to ensure that patients admitted to the facility are safe from developing additional infections while receiving treatment.
PICOT Question
Does the provision of proper hand hygiene education among healthcare workers help to reduce the incidents of hospital-acquired infection?
Purpose of the Paper
This paper aims to analyze a major health problem, which is a hospital-acquired infection, and provide evidence-based research to demonstrate how hand hygiene education among healthcare workers can help prevent the spread of hospital-acquired infections.
Level of Evidence
Type of Question
After selecting the PICOT question, the next step is to determine what kind of question is being asked along with the best study design to search for to find evidence to answer the clinical question. For instance, in this particular case, the type of questions being asked is based on the effectiveness of hand hygiene education among healthcare workers as a strategy to reduce the spread of hospital-acquired infections.
Best Evidence to Answer the Question
The most suitable study design to be used is Cohort studies, where a group of workers would be observed after being exposed to hand hygiene education and determine the level of outcome in terms of reduced cases of hospital-acquired infections. Other supportive studies will be set up, most likely, within the hospital environment and generate statistical information, as well as plans to back up the outcomes.
Search Strategy
Search Terms
The search terms used in this topic to gather relevant information are ‘hygiene education’ and ‘hospital-acquired infection.’ To establish the most useful sources from the search engine, I selected ‘full text’ and ‘peer-reviewed’ and limited the search to recently published articles. The initial search provided 6,562 results, and I narrowed my search to include the term ‘compliance,’ which showed 3,021 articles.
Database
Besides utilizing the course materials available in the library, I used Google Scholar to locate the articles relevant to the selected topic. I scanned about 12 articles to find a variety of information related to the topic and reviewed 8 sources in detail. From these 8 articles, 2 contained a specific health problem but did not provide adequate information to support my PICOT question. Therefore, I selected the remaining 6 sources to use.
Refinement Decisions Made
The provision of hand hygiene education among healthcare workers indeed helps to curb the spread of hospital-acquired infections. The information from the sources chosen indicates the positive impacts of the measure. This is evident from 2 secondary research academic articles.
Identification of Two Articles
Kingston, L., O’Connell, N., & Dunne, C. (2016). Hand hygiene-related clinical trials reported since 2010: A systematic review. Journal of Hospital Infection, 92(4), 309-320. doi:10.1016/j.jhin.2015.11.012
Neo, J. R., Sagha-Zadeh, R., Vielemeyer, O., & Franklin, E. (2016). Evidence-based practices to increase hand hygiene compliance in health care facilities: An integrated review. American Journal of Infection Control, 44(6), 691-704. doi:10.1016/j.ajic.2015.11.034
References
Stone, P. W. (2009). Economic burden of healthcare-associated infections: an American perspective. Expert review of pharmacoeconomics & outcomes research, 9(5), 417-422.