Document Type
Journal Article
Publication Title
American Journal of Infection Control
Publisher
Mosby Inc.
School
School of Medical and Health Sciences
RAS ID
27341
Abstract
Background
The Researching Effective Approaches to Cleaning in Hospitals (REACH) study tested a multimodal cleaning intervention in Australian hospitals. This article reports findings from a pre/post questionnaire, embedded into the REACH study, that was administered prior to the implementation of the intervention and at the conclusion of the study.
Methods
A cross-sectional questionnaire, nested within a stepped-wedge trial, was administered. The REACH intervention was a cleaning bundle comprising 5 interdependent components. The questionnaire explored the knowledge, reported practice, attitudes, roles, and perceived organizational support of environmental services staff members in the hospitals participating in the REACH study.
Results
Environmental services staff members in 11 participating hospitals completed 616 pre- and 307 post-test questionnaires (n = 923). Increases in knowledge and practice were seen between the pre-and post-test questionnaires. Minimal changes were observed in attitudes regarding the role of cleaning and in perceived organizational support.
Conclusion
To our knowledge, this is the first study to report changes in knowledge, attitudes, and perceived organizational support in environmental services staff members, in the context of a large multicenter clinical trial. In this underexplored group of hospital workers, findings suggest that environmental services staff members have a high level of knowledge related to cleaning practices and understand the importance of their role.
DOI
10.1016/j.ajic.2018.02.003
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Comments
Mitchell, B. G., White, N., Farrington, A., Allen, M., Page, K., Gardner, A., ... & Graves, N. (2018). Changes in knowledge and attitudes of hospital environmental services staff: The Researching Effective Approaches to Cleaning in Hospitals (REACH) study. American journal of infection control, 46 (9), p. 980-985. Available here