title: Can the emotion of disgust be harnessed to promote hand hygiene? Experimental and field-based tests.
abstract: Two studies carried out in Sydney, Australia explored whether inducing disgust may be a useful addition to hand-hygiene interventions. Experiment 1 employed a novel laboratory measure of hand hygiene, and tested whether a brief (3-min) video-based intervention using disgust/education, improved hand hygiene relative to education alone and a control condition. On test, a week later, the disgust intervention significantly exceeded the education and control condition combined, although the effect size was modest. Experiment 2 examined the generality of this effect in a field study. During a baseline period, soap and paper towel use in a series of washrooms were covertly monitored. This was followed by an intervention period, in which two washrooms received disgust/education-based posters and a further two, educational posters, exhorting participants to wash their hands. A follow-up period, after the posters were removed, was also monitored. The disgust-based intervention was significantly better at promoting hand hygiene. These findings suggest that even brief disgust-based interventions may be successful and that these can be tested and developed under laboratory conditions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Macquarie University, North Ryde, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia.
authors.forename: Renata
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Porzig-Drummond
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Stevenson
authors.forename: Trevor
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Case
authors.forename: Megan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Oaten
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001315:Australia; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006235:Hand Disinfection / Q000379:methods*; D006266:Health Education / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D055815:Young Adult