Handwashing for Reducing infection in Aged Care Facilities

3. Research questions or hypothesis

Research question: Does hand washing help in controlling the infection in aged care facilities?

Research hypothesis: Infections in aged care facilities get passed by hand washing with soap and normal water rather than using of sanitizers after hand washing.

Nursing intervention related to this research are related in a manner in which nurses consider hand washing practices and their routine of hand washing (Sreenivasan et al., 2015).They plays significant role in age care facilities and come in direct contact with old people so washing and hand hygiene are very important. All kind of nursing care units use this, especially intensive care units, as patients in this are not able to take care of themselves and nurses are required for them.

4. General Research Objective

Research objective, which is Hand washing for Reducing infection in aging Care Facilities. This objective is SMART; this can be justified as

Specific: To establish hand washing techniques to reduce infection in aged care facilities.

Measurable: To determine the success of an objective reduction in the rate of illness caused by infections that spread through unhygienic hands is helpful.

Attainable—this objective is definitely attainable.

Relevant: This objective is relevant to nursing field.

A time limit in form of month and year can be decided for this and also compared with starting point and difference achieved.

5. Other disciplines that could be connected to this research activity

Another discipline that can be connected with this research activity is providing training to the nursing staff so that they can understand the importance of hand washing and also various methods that can be used for hand hygiene. There are various strategies that can be used at aged care facilities by nursing staff to maintain hand hygiene (Farhoudi et al., 2016). This disciple has been chosen here so that all the nursing staff can be trained about importance and practice of hand washing and this is also important, as without knowledge of the practice, how the staff will consider hand washing while their work of aged care.

6. sources from which data was gathered

Source 1:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2767496/

Source 2:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3249958/

7. Methods of gathering information

There are various methods that can be used to gather information and the two methods that have been selected for this research are a literature review and interviews. Literature review has been chosen as lot of information that cannot be found anywhere is available in literature like books and journals on healthcare and hygiene. The other method that could be used for this purpose is interview, as information collected from interview is more like practicable as the interviewees have gone through the use and effect of this practices and are well aware of its significance and importance (Sunkesula et al., 2015). For the purpose of this report, interviews can be undertaken with senior nursing staff, as they know many things about hand hygiene and currently prevailing practices for hand washing and its importance more regarding aged care facilities.

8. Gather Information

As per the view of Purva Mathur, proper hygiene is most inexpensive means of reducing prevalence of HAIs and antimicrobial resistance. MRSA that invariably occurs in hands of HCPs that work in ICU can be reduced by proper hand washing compliance. The hand hygiene liaison group found nine controlled studies and all of them were effective in reducing infection-related illness. Evidence suggest that proper hand hygiene practices has significantly reduces rates of acquisition of pathogens on hands and has ultimately reduced the rates of HAIs in hospitals.

According to Takahashi et al., hand washing during the work and gloves use required by standard precautions were regarded as hand hygiene compliant group and non-compliant hygiene group includes hand washing before direct contact with residents, washing hands after direct contact with residents, washing hands when moving from a contaminated body site to a clean one during aged care, hand washing after removing gloves, washing hands before eating and after using the restroom, hand washing during busy work, and the use of a new pair of gloves for each care and glove use in the presence of possible infection.

Evaluation: Article one explains why it is important to wash hands; the other information from second article suggest when nursing staff is required to wash hands in their work schedule.

Analysis: Both are important but second article is more about when nursing staff needs to wash hands, which gives clear instruction and suggests its practice.

9. Relevant and irrelevant information

Information that is gathered from article 2 is more relevant, giving clear instructions when nursing staff needs to wash hands and maintain hand hygiene. Information in article 1 is less relevant as that gives information related to importance that is also in complicated form that everyone cannot understand. Article 2 also does not contain any information regarding how nursing staff can maintain hand hygiene, which is more important. When it comes to hand hygiene, article 2 also contain information regarding use of gloves while treating and caring for elderly people. Any such information and importance concerned with using gloves is also not in article 1, making it less relevant.

10. Organization of information

Keywords that have been used for this research are nursing, hand washing, and aged care facilities, and those articles that have been mentioned as answers to question 9.

In this article, 1 suggests importance of hand washing in aged care facilities and 2^nd article is about when nursing staff needs to maintain hand hygiene along with the practices that they can use for maintaining hand hygiene (Sadule-Rios & Aguilera, 2017). 2^nd article also suggested using gloves for hand hygiene and article 1 clarifies what the benefits of hand washing are, how it reduces chances of illness that is caused by infection and that nursing staff working in ICU need to be more careful about their hand hygiene.

On the basis of content provided by the article, they can be organised on the basis of article one

• ·Importance of hand washing
• ·When and how hands are required to be washed by nursing staff.

11. Prioritization of information

The information in this article, article 2nd, has been kept at priority and than comes article 1st, as article 2^nd provides more precise information about hand washing and also includes hand hygiene practices. These two articles have been kept for rest of the project for comparison and contrasting. These articles have also been kept because they provide most relevant information about hand washing its importance and practices at aged care facilities (Stuart et al., 2015). On the basis of their organization, article 1^st will be kept at priority as it informs about the importance of hand washing and then article 2^nd as it provides information about practices that need to be followed by nursing staff.

12. Comparison and contrasting of both articles

13. CONCLUSION

On the basis of information collected, mentioned, and analyzed earlier, it can be concluded that hand washing is very important for nursing staff at aged care facilities as many people at these places are not able to perform basic activities and also require medical treatment, and because of that, nursing staff have to come in direct contact with old people, and that increases the chances of illness that is caused by infections as nursing staff also come in contact with many other patients, and if they have come in contact with any patient who is contaminated, the chances of those illnesses in other patients are higher. For this reason, nursing staff have to maintain their hand hygiene. To maintain their hand hygiene, they can wash their hands with soap; they can also use hand sanitizer.

15. Impact of conclusion at workplace

To use this information at the workplace, the most effective and easy way is to give training to the nursing staff working at aged care facilities (Kramer et al., 2017). This will make sure that they wash their hands whenever required and with the best possible method of washing hands. So that elderly people do not get ill because of any kind of infection.

16. Reflection of learning

This learning has enabled me to have the very best knowledge of hand washing practices, and one area that can be improved at the workplace is that using sanitizer instead of washing hands all the time is easy and convenient, and nursing staff can carry the sanitizers along with them wherever they go. Using this practice will also ensure hand hygiene of all the staff working at aged care facilities.

17. Issues require further research

Issues such as the illnesses that easily spread through infection and unhygienic hands are of significant concern. Nursing essay help can provide valuable insights into these topics. Nursing staff who come into contact with many contaminated patients and then interact with those who are not increase the chances of spreading infection. Understanding what kinds of infections are more likely to spread and what practices need to be followed to prevent this requires more research.

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