Volunteers, religious communities and users representatives as an alternative for visiting hospitalized patients: The importance of an infection control training

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the suspension of relatives' visits was a common measure in healthcare facilities to prevent the spread of the virus among patients. This measure caused significant adverse consequences for hospitalized patients. Volunteers' intervention was an alternative but...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2023-05, Vol.18 (5), p.e0286002-e0286002
Main Authors: Maurand, Audrey, Le Guen, Ronan, Sakr, Celine, Sabourin, Nadine, Hacquin, Bruno, Boulmier, Stéphanie, Bonnin, Christèle, Gobe, Lamnakhone, Fourreau, Frédéric, Decousser, Jean-Winoc
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biology and Life Sciences
Consent
Coronaviruses
COVID-19
COVID-19 - epidemiology
COVID-19 - prevention & control
Disease control
Disease transmission
Education
Evaluation
France
Health care facilities
Health facilities
Health risks
Hospitalization
Hospitals
Humans
Hygiene
Infection Control
Knowledge
Knowledge acquisition
Management
Medicine and Health Sciences
Microorganisms
Nosocomial infections
Pandemics
Pandemics - prevention & control
Patients
Personal hygiene
Prevention
Questionnaires
Religion
Safety and security measures
Secondary schools
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2
Social Sciences
Statistical analysis
Suburban areas
Suburbs
Sustainability
Tertiary
Training
Viruses
Volunteers
Volunteers - education
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:During the COVID-19 pandemic, the suspension of relatives' visits was a common measure in healthcare facilities to prevent the spread of the virus among patients. This measure caused significant adverse consequences for hospitalized patients. Volunteers' intervention was an alternative but could also lead to cross transmission events. in order to secure their intervention with patients, we implemented an infection control training to evaluate and to improve the knowledge of volunteers about infection control measures. We performed a before-after study in a group of five tertiary referral teaching hospitals in the suburbs of Paris. A total of 226 volunteers from three groups (religious representatives, civilian volunteers and users' representatives) were included. Basic theoretical and practical knowledge about infection control, hand hygiene, and glove and mask use were evaluated just before and immediately after a three-hour training program. The contribution of the characteristics of the volunteers to the results was studied. The initial conformity rate for theoretical and practical infection control measures ranged from 53% to 68%, depending on the participants' activity status and education level. Some critical shortcomings in hand hygiene as well as mask and glove wearing putatively endangered the patients and volunteers. Surprisingly, serious gaps were also identified among volunteers who experienced care activities. Regardless of their origin, the program significantly improved both their theoretical and practical knowledge (p
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0286002