Now a survey finds that many patients are reluctant to ask medical folks to lather up.
Researchers surveyed 200 hospital patients who were at risk for—or had previously had—a hospital-acquired infection. Nearly 100 percent of them agreed that health care workers should wash their hands before and after seeing a patient. But just 54 percent of them said they would feel comfortable asking doctors to wash their hands—and just 64 percent would feel comfortable asking a nurse. And when faced with the situation in real life, just 14 percent said that they had actually asked a health care worker to wash their hands.
The findings are in the journal Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology. [Andrew Ottum et al., Do Patients Feel Comfortable Asking Health Care Workers to Wash Their Hands?]
So don't be shy about asking your docs to wash up. The good ones may even thank you.
—Katherine Harmon
