Alcohol hand rubs: hygiene and hazard

doi:10.1136/bmj.39274.583472.AE

BMJ 2007;335:1154-1155 (1 December), doi:10.1136/bmj.39274.583472.AE

Practice

Lesson of the week

Alcohol hand rubs: hygiene and hazard

John R H Archer, specialist registrar in general internal medicine and clinical pharmacology¹, David M Wood, acting consultant in clinical toxicology¹, Zoe Tizzard, specialist in poisons information¹, Alison L Jones, professor of medicine and toxicology², Paul I Dargan, consultant physician and clinical toxicologist, director¹

¹ Guy's and St Thomas' Poisons Unit, Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, London SE14 5ER, ² University of Newcastle, Newcastle, NSW 2300, Australia

Correspondence to: J R H Archer jrh_archer@yahoo.com

Young or confused people and those dependent on alcohol areat risk from ingestion of alcohol hand rubs

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Hospital acquired infections are common and increase morbidity,mortality, and length of stay.¹ ² The benefit of hand washinghas been highlighted,³ and studies have shown that alcohol handrub is significantly better than soap in reducing hand contamination.⁴⁵ ⁶ ⁷ In 2004, NHS trusts were advised to introduce "near patient"alcohol based hand rubs (for example, attached beside beds andat entrances to wards) by April 2005.⁸

With the widespread introduction of these hand rubs, risk assessmentswere made for the possibility of fire and ingestion. Althoughalcohol hand rub is flammable, no incidents involving fire haveoccurred. The risk of ingestion was thought possible in childrenand confused patients, but little advice was given on reducingthis risk.⁸ Frequent dermal application of alcohol based handrub has been shown not to raise blood ethanol levels.⁹ However,no further risk assessment has examined unintentional or intentionalingestion of alcohol rubs.

We report . . . [Full text of this article]

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