title: Technical note: Assessment of blinding of hand hygiene observers in randomized controlled trials of hand hygiene interventions.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Research Department of Infection and Population Health, University College London, Hampstead Campus, London, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Chris
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Fuller
authors.forename: Sarah
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Besser
authors.forename: Barry D
authors.initials: BD
authors.lastname: Cookson
authors.forename: Ellen
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Fragaszy
authors.forename: Julian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Gardiner
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: McAteer
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Michie
authors.forename: Joanne
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Savage
authors.forename: Sheldon P
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Stone
mesh_terms: 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