Technical note: Assessment of blinding of hand hygiene observers in randomized controlled trials of hand hygiene interventions.
Trials evaluating interventions to improve health care workers' hand hygiene compliance use directly observed compliance as a primary outcome measure. Observers should be blinded to the intervention and the effectiveness of blinding assessed to prevent systematic bias. The literature has not addressed this issue, and this study describes a robust and pragmatic method for assessing the adequacy of blinding in hand hygiene intervention trials.
Fuller
Chris
C
Research Department of Infection and Population Health, University College London, Hampstead Campus, London, United Kingdom.
Besser
Sarah
S
Cookson
Barry D
BD
Fragaszy
Ellen
E
Gardiner
Julian
J
McAteer
John
J
Michie
Susan
S
Savage
Joanne
J
Stone
Sheldon P
SP
D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000379:methods*; D003428:Cross Infection / Q000517:prevention & control; D019983:Guideline Adherence / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006235:Hand Disinfection; D006282:Health Personnel; D006801:Humans; D017053:Infection Control / Q000379:methods*; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic