Systematic Review of Studies on Compliance with Hand Hygiene Essay

Systematic Review of Studies on Compliance with Hand Hygiene Guidelines in Hospital Care - Essay Example As a nurse, it is my utmost desire to work harmoniously with my patients and colleagues in a holistic manner, and in effect, I decided to critically review this article not only to protect my patients, but for a higher aim of keeping myself and my colleagues away from this preventable and deadly hospital – acquired infection. Another reason that compels me to do this paper is the annual increase of mortality and mobility rate secondary to nosocomial infection as well as improper hand washing technique compliance among the healthcare personnel, in spite of massive campaign for proper hand washing practice. Several campaigns that encourage proper hand hygiene practice were launched over the past decades, but compliance rates among the nursing staff in the hospital were not substantial, and have no lasting effect in preventing the spread of infection. This article was carefully chosen because it presented several data on hand hygiene compliance and guidelines on hand hygiene in t he hospital set up. This paper was explored using the largest search engine in the internet to date, www.google.com. The keywords and terms used were hand hygiene, hospital care, compliance, non – compliance, journals, nosocomial infection, and hospital – acquired infection. All journals published prior to January 2009 were integrated in the searches, and the best journal searched for in this study was downloaded and reviewed. Hand searches and checking of the articles were among the strategies utilized in searching the journals. An article on the systematic review of studies on compliance rate of hand hygiene guidelines in hospital care was reviewed to assess the prevalence rate of hospital – acquired infection and correlate it with the compliance and non – compliance rate of guidelines of hand hygiene in the hospital set up. This paper aimed to improve successfully the rate of compliance using the behavioural sciences to follow a planned approach for th e development of interventions in the future. Systematic reviews of 96 published empirical studies that were conducted to the general populations of developed countries were completed in this article. The process of searching databases starts with screening the title, abstracts, and entire article to ensure that the criteria in selecting the paper are met. Extraction and management of data followed with recapitulation of various findings in the study were made. From this study, it was gathered that people with poor compliance rate were mostly from high activity group. This consist of physicians (having 32% compliance rate) followed by the nurses (with 48% compliance). From the article, it was noted that the compliance rate was much lower in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) with a rate ranging only from 30 – 40%. On the other hand, workers engaged with dirty tasks were those observed to have higher rate of compliance in hand hygiene. Because of incomplete details presented in the study, Erasmus, et al (2010) concluded that further research and monitoring of standard measures must be carried on in the next study, and to better explain the complexities of hand hygiene, theoretical models from behavioural sciences should be employed and adapted in the paper. Erasmus et al. (2010) added that more research focusing on the determinants of behaviour is required

Asian Carp Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Asian Carp - Essay Example Asian Carp are filter feeders, feeding on zooplankton, phytoplankton and organic particles that are suspended in water columns. They have a very large filtering capacity and their maximum size can reach greater than 3 feet long and 100 pounds (Butz, pg. 20). They have been found in the Illinois River since the 1990's. The problem is that to grow to that size, they have voracious appetites. The Long Term Resource Monitoring Program (LTRMP) have been catching them in the routine monitoring of the La Grange Reach, Illinois River since 1995 and 1998. The population has increased rapidly since 2000 and now dominates the fish community on the La Grange Reach (Sharp, pg. 42). They are in constant contest for the same feeding grounds with river fishes such as gizzard shad and bigmouth buffalo and the shad and buffalo are losing. In fact, the buffalo and gizzard are not being eaten, they continue to lose size and weight until they die so they are just being starved out. Most recently Asian Carp DNA has been found east of the Chicago lock which is just 8 miles from the entrance into Lake Michigan. There has now been a great deal of controversy over closing the Chicago lock and canal. The canal and lock manage most of the shipping business for the State of Illinois as well as the sewage from Chicago. This would lead to decreased shipping and a large loss of income for the people of Chicago and the State of Illinois but it would also affect other nearby States. The problem is that if the Carp get into Lake Michigan, there will be no controlling them and the Lake could be decimated of its fish population and the commerce related to it, which is already a fragile eco-system (Guarno, 2010). The Lakes have been a matter of eco-system work for some years. At one point, Lake Michigan was so dirty that it was not wholly safe to eat the fish. It has taken many years and millions of dollars to clean the eco-system up which is just beginning to thrive again. Recently in an effort to stop the invasive species without closing the Chicago lock more than a dozen Federal, State, and Local agencies got together to do some major poisonings and held a press conference in November. Biologist fear the fish will devastate the lakes to the tune of $7 billion in destruction of fishery so it was allowed to dump 2200 gallons of poison in the Chicago canal. The total cost of the poison and those to perform this task was 3 million dollars. Dead fish were dragged from the water and there was only one Asian Carp among them. However, this does not mean they did not exist and the they have not reached Lake Michigan. It is believed that they will have to adapt the Lake because they spawn in fast moving water but studies prove that they adapt quickly. They also have the advantage of being a non-native species in the sense that studies now show that non-native species have a better chance of surviving in climate changes which are occurring because they have already adapted once. The White has held the Asian Carp Summit in a effort to deal with the fish as well as the methods of bringing non-native species of animals to the United States under any circumstances. A secondary issue that is being discussed is the fact that this species would not be moving into the Lake if man did not consistently change eco-systems to provide for themselves and the Chicago canal is an example. Though it does have fish blocks up, they may get