title: Hand hygiene compliance in Penang, Malaysia: Human audits versus product usage.
abstract: Hand hygiene auditing is mandatory for all Malaysian public hospitals; nonetheless, the burden of auditing is impacting the support and sustainability of the program. We report an alternative method to routinely measure hand hygiene compliance with the aim to test whether alcohol-based handrub purchase data could be used as a proxy for usage because human auditing has decreased validity and reliability inherent in the methodology.
authors.affiliation: Penang State Health Department, Ministry of Health, Georgetown, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Yew Fong
authors.initials: YF
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Penang State Health Department, Ministry of Health, Georgetown, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Hassan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Merican
authors.affiliation: Infection Control Unit, Penang Hospital, Ministry of Health, Georgetown, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Revathy
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Nallusamy
authors.affiliation: Clinical Research Centre, Penang Hospital, Ministry of Health, Georgetown, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Loke Meng
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Ong
authors.affiliation: Medical Development Division, Ministry of Health, Putrajaya, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Paa
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Mohamed Nazir
authors.affiliation: Infection Control Unit, Penang Hospital, Ministry of Health, Georgetown, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Hafizah Binti
authors.initials: HB
authors.lastname: Hamzah
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health and Community Medicine, UNSW Medicine, Sydney, NSW, Australia. Electronic address: m.mclaws@unsw.edu.au.
authors.forename: Mary-Louise
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: McLaws
mesh_terms: D004202:Disinfectants; D004363:Drug Utilization; D019983:Guideline Adherence / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D063373:Hand Hygiene / Q000379:methods*; D006302:Health Services Research; D006801:Humans; D008296:Malaysia; D008330:Management Audit
chemical_list: D004202:Disinfectants
keywords: Hand hygiene compliance; alcohol-based handrub; hand sanitizer purchase data; human auditing; product usage; validity