The Best Of Intentions: Patients' Intentions To Request Health Care Workers Cleanse Hands Before Examinations

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that patients ask health care providers to cleanse their hands in the patients' presence for each examination. This study investigates the utility of the recommendation in light of potential challenges stemming from norms in the provider-patient relationship. In addition, we investigate the role of individual differences that may make such a discussion especially difficult (e.g., interaction anxiety) or seem inappropriate (e.g., authoritarianism). We also seek to identify how well-known predictors of behavioral intentions (i.e., attitudes, subjective norms, efficacy, outcome benefits and costs) affect intentions to perform this specific behavior. In total, 250 hospitalized, postsurgical patients were asked about their own likelihood of following the CDC recommendation. They were also asked to view and respond to video depictions of a doctor and patient interaction that varied the presence of a patient request and a doctor's cleansing. Results of the study suggest the CDC recommendation, without additional considerations, is unlikely to reduce dangers posed by health care worker transmission of infectious disease.