Promoting a Hand Hygiene Program Using Social Media: An Observational Study

Emojis in public health and how they might be used for hand hygiene and infection prevention and control

Emojis are frequently used picture characters known as possible surrogates for non-verbal aspects of behavior. Considering the ability of emojis to enhance and facilitate communication, there has been a growing interest in studying their effects in scientific and health-related topics over the past few years. Infection prevention and control (IPC) is a field of medicine that is directly associated with specific behaviors. These include hand hygiene, which is the cornerstone of the prevention of healthcare-associated infections, and essential in stemming the spread of antimicrobial resistance. This paper aims to provide an overview of how emojis have been used in the medical and public health literature and proposes their possible use in IPC and hand hygiene to put forth a vision for the future research.

Discourse on hygiene between hospitalized patients and health care workers as an accepted norm: Making it legitimate to remind health care workers about hand hygiene

BACKGROUND

Despite World Health Organization recommendations that patients should play a role in encouraging hand hygiene (HH) as a means of preventing infection, patient engagement remains an underused method. From the perspectives of hospitalized patients (HPs) and health care workers (HCWs) at 2 major public hospitals in Haifa, Israel, this research investigated (1) HP barriers to reminding HCWs to maintain HH, (2) HCW barriers to giving HPs instruction on proper hygiene, (3) what could help HPs and HCWs overcome these barriers, and (4) how video clips can be used to devise tailored strategies governing discourse on HH between HCWs and HPs.

METHODS

Intervention type 2 design and examination of 2 population groups-HPs and HCWs-before and after intervention by means of mixed methods research.

RESULTS

Both HPs and HCWs reported partial knowledge, embarrassment, and fears regarding commenting to staff, as well as a lack of cultural adaptation. The interviewees indicated that the video clips granted legitimacy to reminding HCWs about hygiene through strategies designed to identify and solve barriers, authenticity, and cultural adaptation.

CONCLUSIONS

To overcome HP and HCW barriers to maintaining HH, tailored video clips on HH should specify barriers and solutions with which they can both identify, thus turning discourse on HH into an accepted norm.

Using social media to disseminate research in infection prevention, hospital epidemiology, and antimicrobial stewardship

Social media, prevention of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) and antimicrobial stewardship (ASP) each impact every area of medicine. Independently, each have power to change medicine, however, synergistically, the impact could be transformative. Given the profound clinical, financial, and public health impact of infection prevention and antimicrobial stewardship combined with the incomplete uptake of best practices, multimodal strategies employing social media are critical to increase the speed and reach of research. This review discusses the strategic utilization of online communication platforms to increase the dissemination of critical publications.

Exploring the use of entertainment-education YouTube videos focused on infection prevention and control

BACKGROUND

As a communications strategy, education entertainment has been used to inform, influence, and shift societal and individual behaviors. Recently, there has been an increasing number of entertainment-education YouTube videos focused on hand hygiene. However, there is currently no understanding about the quality of these videos; therefore, this study aimed to explore the social media content and user engagement with these videos.

METHODS

The search terms "hand hygiene" and "hand hygiene education" were used to query YouTube. Video content had to be directed at a health care professional audience. Using author designed checklists, each video was systematically evaluated and grouped according to educational usefulness and was subsequently evaluated against the categories of attractiveness, comprehension, and persuasiveness.

RESULTS

A total of 400 videos were screened, with 70 videos retained for analysis. Of these, 55.7% (n = 39) were categorized as educationally useful. Overall, educationally useful videos scored higher than noneducationally useful videos across the categories of attractiveness, comprehension, and persuasiveness. Miscommunication of the concept of My 5 Moments for Hand Hygiene was observed in several of the YouTube videos.

CONCLUSIONS

The availability of educationally useful videos in relation to hand hygiene is evident; however, it is clear that there are opportunities for contributors using this medium to strengthen their alignment with social media best practice principles to maximize the effectiveness, reach, and sustainability of their content.