Public Campaign Evaluation
On 13 October 2005, The Minister for Health and Community Care took part in the launch of the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Patient Safety Challenge launch of its programme Clean Care is Safer Care. The WHO Guidelines on Hand Hygiene in Health Care (Advanced Draft), October 2005 were also issued at this event. The WHO Guidelines state that although hand hygiene is the primary measure to reduce infections “the lack of compliance among healthcare providers is problematic throughout the world” and recommend that National Governments:
- Make improved hand hygiene adherence a national priority and consider provision of a funded, co-ordinated and implemented programme for improvement.
- Support the strengthening of infection capacities within healthcare settings
- Promote hand hygiene at the community level to strengthen both self protection and protection of others.
At the event in October 2005 the Minister for Health and Community Care pledged to continue the work of the Healthcare Associated Infection (HAI) Task Force for a further two years and to undertake a national hand hygiene campaign involving NHS Scotland and members of the public (including a focus on children).
- A media campaign using TV, washroom posters, print and online commenced on Jan 15th and ran through until 28th Feb.
- The primary audience were parents and carers with children under ten.
- The key objective was to increase awareness of the importance of hand hygiene.
The campaign strap line and theme was “Germs, Wash your hands of them”.
Key Achievements
- 71 % of those aware said there were more likely to wash their hands more frequently as a direct result of seeing the advertising.
- 85% agreed the campaign has made them more aware of the importance of good hand hygiene.
Additional Highlights
- Good levels of spontaneous awareness were achieved against both our audiences (30% in parents and 55% in the general public).
After prompting 58% of parents were aware of at least one strand of the campaign.
- Encouragingly 44% recognised the TV, 27% recalling seeing the press ad and 16% remembering the washroom activity.
- Campaign messages were communicated clearly and were well understood. 92% of recognisers claiming washing your hands is very important compared to 68% of those who had not seen the advertising with the remaining 8% of recognisers claiming it is quite important.
- 78% of those who recognised the campaign thought that washing your hands is the most important way to stop the spread of infections. Encouragingly those aware of the campaign are more likely to consider hand hygiene as a very serious issue (65%) compared to those who are not aware (23%).
Attitudes to advertising were very positive. 64% respondents believed that the campaign was informative. With over a third finding it thought-provoking, straightforward and relevant.
Implications
For future campaign activity, the research suggests we are hitting our core audience through our media choices. We will work on optimising the media mix to provide best value. We will also broaden our research to encompass the general public in phase two.
To view the full evaluation findings, please click here.
