Research Design for the Project
As the project is based mainly on the evidence-based practice proposal, it will focus primarily on reducing and preventing Clostridium difficile (C. diff) infection incidence among health care workers through the implementation of hand hygiene practices (Dubberke et al., 2014). The variables that could be identified for this project are the following: the C. diff incidence rate, the application of hand hygiene practices, and patient outcomes (White et al., 2015). It is evident that since these measures could be easily quantified, the project should employ quantitative methodology. The quantitative research design will allow to retrieve vast amounts of information and generalize findings for future use in other hospital settings. The project consists of implementing hand hygiene interventions for healthcare workers. Policy changes are not considered in this project. Nurses participating in the project will complete surveys on their perceptions of the project’s effectiveness. Also, hospital records will be employed to retrieve objective data about the intervention’s impact. Thus, a comprehensive understanding of the project’s efficiency will be acquired.
Description of the Targeted Population
As the project focuses primarily on reducing and preventing Clostridium difficile (C. diff) infection incidence among health care workers, it is appropriate to suggest that it will target the population of nurses in hospital settings. The primary inclusion criterion is the nurse’s direct interaction with patients. Healthcare workers who are not directly involved in the process of caregiving should not be included. Thus, it appears that the sample size could not be significantly large in such circumstances. However, it is argued that a sample size of 50 nurses would give sufficient information about the hospital setting’s hand hygiene culture. Nurse leaders are responsible for encouraging and motivating other nurses to participate efficiently in the project, and they should also control the process of hand hygiene interventions’ implementation.
Protection of the Participants
As the participation in the project involves the risk of being infected with C. diff, it is essential to discuss the aspect of the participants’ protection. First of all, it is critical that the recruitment process would involve making all participating nurses signing written consent forms for the affirmation of their compliance with the conditions of the project. The privacy of the participants should also be respected for this project. Therefore, it is of high importance to store the gathered information appropriately. The participant should be aware of the C. diff infection’s outcomes.
Data Analysis Methods
The question of data analysis methods is also highly important since it will allow retrieving meaningful conclusions from the gathered objective and subjective information. Primarily, it is needed to calculate the percentage change in the C. diff incidence rate and the impact of implemented hand hygiene interventions on positive or negative fluctuations in the incidence rate. Since such calculations are considerably basic, they could be performed in such office programs as Excel, and thus any special statistical software is not required. The participants’ survey answers will be analyzed similarly through the employment of the Likert scale. From the interpreted information, graphs or pie charts could be developed.
Timeline of the Project
The implementation of the project requires changes in the healthcare workers’ behavior, and thus it should take at least four months (Fuller et al., 2014). The timeline of the project could be projected as follows:
- Week 1: Submit the proposal to obtain the final approval;
- Week 2: Create the sample and instruct participants;
- Weeks 3-13: Implement hand hygiene interventions and collect information;
- Weeks 14-15: Analysis of the data and preparation of the project results’ presentation;
- Week 16: Submitting the final version of the report.
References
Dubberke, E. R., Carling, P., Carrico, R., Donskey, C. J., Loo, V. G., McDonald, L. C.,… Gerding, D. N. (2014). Strategies to prevent Clostridium difficile infections in acute care hospitals: 2014 update. Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology, 35(S2), S48-S65. Web.
Fuller, C., Besser, S., Savage, J., McAteer, J., Stone, S., & Michie, S. (2014). Application of a theoretical framework for behavior change to hospital workers’ real-time explanations for noncompliance with hand hygiene guidelines. American Journal of Infection Control, 42(2), 106-110.
White, K. M., Jimmieson, N. L., Obst, P. L., Graves, N., Barnett, A., Cockshaw, W.,… Martin, E. (2015). Using a theory of planned behaviour framework to explore hand hygiene beliefs at the ‘5 critical moments’ among Australian hospital-based nurses. BMC Health Services Research, 15(1), 59-68.