IMPROVING HAND HYGIENE IN CRUISE SHIP: AN INTERVENTION STUDY

Cruise ships are relatively small, crowded spaces where many people travel in a new environment, making infection control especially important. Proper hand hygiene is the first line of defense against the spread of infection. This study aimed to measure the effectiveness of different hand hygiene improvement measures onboard.

The study took place on the Celestyal Olympia , a medium-sized cruise ship. Our intervention study had four arms: first, baseline parameters were measured. Then, three different interventions were implemented—surface disinfection with antimicrobial spray, behavioral change through hand hygiene monitoring, and training.

Each person onboard used on average 7.6 soap doses and 1.6 hand-rub doses per day, indicating suboptimal hand hygiene frequency. Surface disinfection sprays were not proven to effectively reduce microbial loads on surfaces. Hand hygiene monitoring devices can only be effective if crew members can use them during their shifts. Designing hand hygiene training for crew members is challenging, as they have very limited preexisting knowledge of health sciences.

There were some additional lessons from the study. Hand hygiene compliance is primarily determined by the setting—the placement of dispensers and whether passengers are reminded to use them. Language barriers are a limiting factor that should be considered when planning communication strategies for both crew and passengers.

On cruise ships, hand hygiene is often associated with food hygiene. While there are clear recommendations in that area, there is a lack of guidelines on how to improve passengers’ hand hygiene. Some passengers have strong opinions about hand hygiene—either positive or negative—but they are a minority. The majority of passengers are not interested on hand hygiene; they perform it when the setting is optimal but otherwise skip it. Clear recommendations are needed to establish an environment that effectively promotes hand hygiene.