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Alcohol-based handrub (AHR) consumption is positively correlated with increases in hand hygiene (HH) compliance. In our 2,000-bed hospital in India, multiple awareness drives have been conducted to promote HH. This study aimed to determine the quantitative effect of these campaigns on use of HH products (soap and AHR) in the hospital. Over the last 6 years, bar soap consumption has increased by 389.15%, whereas that of AHR increased by 146.7%. We also evaluated microbial contamination of 99 bar soap and 60 liquid soap samples in our hospital for a year. Of the samples, 61 (61.6%) of the bar soaps and 2 (3.3%) of the liquid soaps were found to be contaminated with various organisms (P .0002). To conclude, the focus should be to increase the right kind of HH product so that hospitals in developing countries procure liquid soaps instead of bar soaps for handwashing purposes.

Hand hygiene compliance at our institution was monitored by direct observation before and after a series of 2 hand hygiene awareness campaigns across an18-month time period to analyze the effect of these campaigns. A total of 5,059 opportunities for hand hygiene were observed. Compliance increased from 28.1% (95% confidence interval [CI], 18.7%-43.2%) to 42.5% (95% CI, 30.7%-54.8%) after the 2 campaigns (P.0001) but dropped to 36.4% (95% CI, 30.5%-44.5%) after 2 years (P.001). Three of the 8 intensive care units that showed a significant increase after the campaigns did not maintain the increased compliance at 2 years' follow-up. We conclude that educational programs should be repeatedly conducted to maintain high adherence to hand hygiene standards in health care settings.