Patient involvement in healthcare professionals’ hand hygiene compliance before and during the COVID-19 pandemic

Introduction The need to educate the public about proper hand hygiene (HH) practices has gained prominence in light of the global epidemiological situation, particularly the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic. Aim of the research To examine the patients’ views of Health Care Providers’ (HCPs) HH compliance before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Material and methods The study was conducted through a diagnostic survey and involved 192 participants. Results According to 84.9% of respondents, HCPs’ HH is significant for patients’ health. This belief was held by most respondents both before and during the COVID-19 pandemic (p = 0.018). The greater part of respondents (74.5%) believed that the observance of HH by HCPs prevents infections among patients. However, notably, during the pandemic, there was a significant increase in the proportion of respondents who associated HCPs’ HH practices with professionalism (45.4% vs. 63.2%, p = 0.014). Nurses were more likely to perform hand hygiene than other HCPs before and during the COVID-19 pandemic (p = 0.034). Conclusions During the COVID-19 pandemic, patients considered HCPs to be more professional or thought that medics were much more likely to perform HH before examining a patient or performing sterile procedures. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic affected the perception of nurses as those HCPs who perform hand hygiene more often than others. The pandemic did not change patients’ beliefs about the possibility of influencing the hygiene behaviour of HCPs. In contrast, patients observed that hand hygiene was promoted more often during the pandemic than before the pandemic.