One concept that I have explored is the negative impact of glove use on hand hygiene. Here is a provocative article titled Wearing gloves: the worst enemy of hand hygiene? Another article published in the American Journal of Infection Control, by the same lead author, investigated the impact of improved glove usage on hand hygiene. Quite simply, greater compliance with gloving does not necessarily result in improvements in hand hygiene. There are dirty hands in the gloves.
My opinion? The promotion of glove use must be accompanied by concurrent and ongoing hand hygiene education. In our controlled trial of universal gloving, hand hygiene adherence was sustained during universal gloving by ongoing hand hygiene education and adherence monitoring.
The message is rather simple: wash you hands before and after donning gloves. There are no shortcuts.
