The effect of hand hygiene frequency on reducing acute respiratory infections in the community: a meta-analysis.
Epidemiol Infect
; 150: e79, 2022 03 21.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1805520
ABSTRACT
Hand hygiene is a simple, low-cost intervention that may lead to substantial population-level effects in suppressing acute respiratory infection epidemics. However, quantification of the efficacy of hand hygiene on respiratory infection in the community is lacking. We searched PubMed for randomised controlled trials on the effect of hand hygiene for reducing acute respiratory infections in the community published before 11 March 2021. We performed a meta-regression analysis using a Bayesian mixed-effects model. A total of 105 publications were identified, out of which six studies reported hand hygiene frequencies. Four studies were performed in household settings and two were in schools. The average number of handwashing events per day ranged from one to eight in the control arms, and four to 17 in the intervention arms. We estimated that a single hand hygiene event is associated with a 3% (80% credible interval (-1% to 7%)) decrease in the daily probability of an acute respiratory infection. Three of these six studies were potentially at high risk of bias because the primary outcome depended on self-reporting of upper respiratory tract symptoms. Well-designed trials with an emphasis on monitoring hand hygiene adherence are needed to confirm these findings.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Respiratory Tract Infections
/
Epidemics
/
Hand Hygiene
Type of study:
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
/
Randomized controlled trials
/
Reviews
Limits:
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
Epidemiol Infect
Journal subject:
Communicable Diseases
/
Epidemiology
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
S0950268822000516
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