Measurement of the Health Belief Model (HBM) in Nurses Hand Hygiene among the Hospitals

Abstract

4 Abstract: Background: Hand hygiene is the most important factor in prevention and control of hospital infections. Since, the HBM attempts to explain the reasons for the health behaviors practice or not, this research is going to measure the HBM constructs in Nurse's hand hygiene behavior. Methods: This is a cross- sectional and analytical study conducted on 130 nurses in the hospitals affiliated to the Arak Medical Sciences University. Data collection instrument is a questionnaire designed by the researcher which measures the HBM constructs and the nurses' practice concerning the health behavior. Data were analyzed using descriptive analytical tests, Chi Square test, Pearson Correlation Coefficient and Fisher precise test. Results: In this study, the samples' mean age was 35.13±7.12; the findings revealed that nurses had poor practice, concerning their hand hygiene (38.76±9.81). The HBM constructs were at medium level including the perceived susceptibility (58.46±9.09), the perceived severity (57.66±11.011), the perceived threat (58.06±7.37) and the perceived benefits (69.29±8.09), respectively. The action to cues score (48.91±11.51) and self-efficacy score (45.04±8.14) were poor and the perceived barriers score was good (71.60±10.08). There appeared a reverse statistical relation between the perceived benefits and susceptibility (P<0.05). Also, there was a meaningful relation between the service location and self-efficacy (P<0.05). Conclusion: Based on this study's results, most of nurses have no good practice concerning the health behavior, despite of having medium attitude score, good perceived benefits score and high score of the perceived barriers. With regard to the crucial role of the nurses in prevention of hospital infections, the authorities must consider the necessary educations based on the successful educational models and adopt multiple approaches in conducting the hand hygiene behavior.