REPUBLIC of the PHILIPPINES

City of Makati
UNIVERSITY OF MAKATI
COLLEGE OF ALLIED HEALTH STUDIES
J. P. Rizal Extension, West Rembo, Makati City 1215
__________________________________________________________________________________
CENTER OF NURSING

Name: Jhyane Kyla C. Trilles Course: Fundamentals in Nursing Practice

Section: 1 – A BSN

Journal Article Critiquing: Investigating the

Factors Affecting the Hand Hygiene Compliance
from the Viewpoints of Iranian Nurses Who
Work in Intensive Care Units
By Esmail Khodadadi Submitted: March 19th 2018 Reviewed: September 17th 2018Published:
December 13th 2019 DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.81561

The title of the article is Investigating the Factors Affecting the Hand Hygiene Compliance from
Viewpoints of Iranian Nurses Who Work in Intensive Care Units. The author —Esmail Khodadadi published
his work on December 13, 2019. This article is interesting as hand hygiene is greatly significant in times of
pandemic. We are on trying times since COVID-19 has rocked up the world by its alarming cases. Based
on the title, the study is clear on determining such factors that affects compliance on hand hygiene.
Moreover, the introduction is clear on the problem that is needed to address in the study. The author’s
statement of the problem is easy to understand and doesn’t include any technical terms for the readers to
understand it. This study aimed to determine the factors affecting the compliance of hand hygiene among
the ICU nurses in educational hospitals of Tabriz in Iran. And this kind and/or topic of research is likely to
have an impact on nursing practice especially to student nurses.
Upon reading the article, most of the literature review used is recently dating to five to ten years
ago from this date. Moreover, the literature review is relevant to the article. Mostly, the literatures are
tackling about importance of hand hygiene, compliance on hand hygiene, and some numerical data from
other researches that clearly states the percentage of nurses who strictly complies to hospital protocols.
However, the research questions are not stated in the article.
Consequently, the article is cross-sectional descriptive study that is conducted in 2015, in Tabriz,
Iran by targeting ICU nurses who worked in teaching hospitals. A total of 200 ICU nurses from a simple
random sampling participated in this study by self-reporting a researcher-made 29-item questionnaire. Part
of this questionnaire is asked about personal (eight items) and organizational (21 items) factors. The
scoring was based on the Likert scale from very effective = 5 to without effect = 1. In this kind of study
 REPUBLIC of the PHILIPPINES
City of Makati
UNIVERSITY OF MAKATI
COLLEGE OF ALLIED HEALTH STUDIES
J. P. Rizal Extension, West Rembo, Makati City 1215
__________________________________________________________________________________
CENTER OF NURSING

where viewpoints are needed, I think random sampling is one of the best ways to conduct this research
with the help of questionnaires. However, I think it would be great if they happen to interview these nurses
to have a reliable and much tougher answers to come up with the results. Moreover, there would be no bias
in the sample. And ethical considerations were observed in the study such as informed consent approved
by the Ethics Committee of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences (No. 5/2079).
Moving on to the findings of the article, the results were presented in a table with description of
what it means under it. The results of this study showed that several factors from nurses’ point of view
affected the hand hygiene practices. Based on their importance, these factors were attitude and beliefs
about the impact of hand hygiene, the shortage of personnel and excessive workload, forgetfulness, and
the belief in the cleansing solution hazards for the skin. These findings are specific and understandable.
Moreover, the author relates the findings on other researches and to the original topic. I believe that the
main strength of this study is that the results were clearly presented in numbers (table) and also in words.
In this way, readers would be able to understand it fully. The findings are specific. However, the limitations
of this study as stated by the author is regarding the generalizability of the results. Therefore, it is
recommended that similar research to be conducted among a larger number of the ICU nurses in different
cities to obtain an overall understanding of factors contributing to a low rate of hand hygiene.
In my perspective, this article could possibly be replicated with a larger participant or conduct it to
another state or place. It would be better if they have conducted also an interview since the viewpoints of
the nurses are one variable here in the study. If the author would be able to administer an interview, a
smaller group of participants is better. In relation to this article, compliance to hand hygiene is important
even if there are factors that may hinder it since hand hygiene prevents the spread of microorganisms.
Additionally, as nurses we should be mindful of our body’s cleanliness as we constantly interact with
numerous patients. Upon knowing the findings of this article, I think I will reflect and think of ways so that I
can minimize those factors while still delivering optimum care to my clients. One thing that I learned from
this article is that even nurses forgets to comply to hand hygiene, what else if it just an ordinary citizen?
However, I learned that hand hygiene is still important and is one of the basic skills that a nurse should be
able to do.