A correct one hand hygiene saves millions of lives every year: all the microorganisms responsible for infectious diseases are potentially transmissible through the hands, the preferred channel of contagion for virus, bacteria And protozoa. We know it well, Covid-19 has demonstrated how poor hand hygiene is an important vehicle for transmitting germs. However, as concerns related to the pandemic have waned the attention of Italians also decreased towards the good practices learned and intensified during the health emergency period.
This is the starting point of a research involving 800 people carried out byOpinion Leader 4 Future Observatory, the project on conscious information born from the collaboration between Credem Group and theHigh School in Media Communication and Entertainment (Almed) of the Catholic University, and conducted thanks to the work of researchers from the university and theBilendi institutein collaboration with the specialists of Agostino Gemelli University Hospital Foundation Irccs From Rome.
Last May 7th, on the occasion of the World Hand Hygiene Awareness Day (World Hand Hygiene Day) promoted by the WHO, the Opinion Leader 4 Future Observatory presented the results of the work. It turned out that only one Italian in two (54%) declares that washing hands has become more important with the pandemic (-9 percentage points year over year) and only the 45% of those interviewed say they wash them more frequently compared to 55% last year.
Other signs of a decline in attention concern, for example, the washing frequency. In particular, the 22% of those interviewed say they have reduced it. Soap is used by 97% of those interviewed (-2 percentage points compared to 2023), with a greater diffusion of liquid soap (87%) compared to the classic bar soap (32%). The use of gels and wipes, however, is less frequent: 25% of those interviewed use sanitizing gel (-4% compared to last year) and 7% use wipes, an emergency means in the car or when out and about.
Broadening our gaze, the data on awareness linked torespiratory hygiene (77% of the population is aware of the fact that correct respiratory hygiene etiquette consists of coughing into the crease of the elbow) andsmartphone hygiene. In fact, 65% of the population identifies it as a potential vehicle for germs, compared to the previous 63%. Given this evidence, however, only 37% declare that they disinfect their smartphone with specific products, of which 25% at least once a day. In short, there is still a lot of cleaning to do on the phone.
However, they are stable differences related to gender and age. The women they wash their hands more often than men, with an average of 7.1 times a day compared to 6.3 for men. Furthermore, those over 65 tend to wash their hands less frequently than younger people, with an average of 6.2 times a day compared to 7.14 for the age group between 45 and 64 years. «The decline in attention towards hand hygiene is a worrying sign of “tiredness” towards sustainable measures of proven effectiveness for the prevention of infections due to dangerous antibiotic-resistant microorganisms capable of putting the health of the most vulnerable people at serious risk. fragile – he explains Patrizia Laurentiassociate professor of general and applied hygiene at the Catholic University, Rome campus, and director of the A. Gemelli Irccs University Hospital Hygiene Unit – but this is precisely the value of measurements conducted with rigorous and reproducible methods: continuing to measure allows us to timely capture signs of a decline in attention to be monitored with targeted, continuous, sustainable and credible interventions because calibrated to the real needs (of knowledge, motivation refresher and more) to be monitored with continuous improvement actions that the data highlight, since they become information useful for guiding best practice decisions”.
There daily prevention it is therefore, and without a doubt, one of the most important tools for maintaining a healthy state of health and promoting individual and collective well-being, protecting in particular the most fragile subjects around us, the elderly and children: «The initiative of the Observatory Opinion 4 Future represents an opportunity for Credem to create awareness, starting with our colleagues, on issues that have a high impact on everyone’s lives and to which we often do not give due consideration” he declared Luigi Ianesiexternal relations manager of Credem – we are certain that through good information we can raise people’s awareness to implement and encourage respect in others for those practices, even simple ones such as hand hygiene, capable of saving lives and having a concrete impact on society.”
