title: A person-oriented approach to hand hygiene behaviour: Emotional empathy fosters hand hygiene practice.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Adopting a social-psychological approach, this research examines whether emotional empathy, an affective reaction regarding another's well-being, fosters hand hygiene as this affects other's health-related well-being extensively.
  
  
  METHODS
  Three studies tested this notion: (a) a cross-sectional study involving a sample of health care workers at a German hospital, (b) an experiment testing the causal effect of empathy on hand hygiene behaviour and (c) an 11-week prospective study testing whether an empathy induction affected disinfectant usage frequency in two different wards of a hospital.
  
  
  METHODS
  Self-reported hand hygiene behaviour based on day reconstruction method was measured in Study 1, actual hand sanitation behaviour was observed in Study 2 and disinfectant usage frequency in two different hospital wards was assessed in Study 3.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Study 1 reveals an association of empathy with hand hygiene cross-sectionally, Study 2 documents the causal effect of empathy on increased hand sanitation. Study 3 shows an empathy induction increases hand sanitiser usage in the hospital.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Increasing emotional empathy promotes hand hygiene behaviour, also in hospitals. Besides providing new impulses for the design of effective interventions, these findings bear theoretical significance as they document the explanatory power of empathy regarding a distal explanandum (hand hygiene).
authors.affiliation: a Department of Social Psychology , University of Ulm , Ulm , Germany.|c Knowledge Media Research Center , Social Processes Lab , Tübingen , Germany.
authors.forename: Claudia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Sassenrath
authors.affiliation: a Department of Social Psychology , University of Ulm , Ulm , Germany.
authors.forename: Svenja
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Diefenbacher
authors.affiliation: b PAUL HARTMANN AG , Heidenheim , Germany.
authors.forename: André
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Siegel
authors.affiliation: a Department of Social Psychology , University of Ulm , Ulm , Germany.
authors.forename: Johannes
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Keller
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004645:Empathy; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany; D006235:Hand Disinfection; D063373:Hand Hygiene; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008505:Medical Staff, Hospital / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008875:Middle Aged; D011446:Prospective Studies; D057566:Self Report; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: empathy; hand hygiene behaviour; interpersonal orientation