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Seven year experience with a mandatory training course within the Vigigerme® infection control program

Introduction / objectives

VigiGerme® is an infection control program built on social marketing principles at the University of Geneva Hospital (HUG). The 2-hour training course was introduced in 2003 and has been mandatory for all healthcare workers (HCWs) since.

Methods

All participants completed a 23-item questionnaire assessing their attitudes (A) towards and knowledge (K) of infection control at the onset and end of the course, and a course evaluation. We performed a descriptive analysis of all questionnaires from 2003 to 2010. Likert scales (1-7) were transformed to binomial values (1-5=0; >6=1).

Results

Of 10373 participants, complete responses were obtained from 9455 (91.4%): 42% nurses, 20% physicians, 26% nursing assistants, and 12% other professional categories. The proportion of participants providing correct responses to questions on hand hygiene, glove use, and mask use increased after the course from 86-97%, 69-93%, and 58-77%, respectively (all p<.001). Perceived high institutional safety culture (SC) and HCW accountability for infectious outcomes (ACC) changed from 20-57% and 55-87% respectively. Furthermore, there was a shift in baseline (pre-course) SC and ACC responses over time (2003-10) from16 to 35% and from 50 to 72%, respectively (all P<.001). Clinical scenarios testing knowledge of isolation precautions (IP) increased from 0.5 to 10.4% (aggregate of 4 correct responses; p<.001). Course evaluation averaged at 6 of 7 points.

Conclusion

The course is highly appreciated by HCW and influences attitude and knowledge positively. Identification of correct IP remains challenging for HCWs. Interestingly, there was a spontaneous evolution in perception of safety culture and HCW accountability over the 7 years.

Disclosure of interest

None declared.

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This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Pasricha, J., Pietro, S.Ld. & Sax, H. Seven year experience with a mandatory training course within the Vigigerme® infection control program. BMC Proc 5 (Suppl 6), P278 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1186/1753-6561-5-S6-P278

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1753-6561-5-S6-P278

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