Schools to take part in study of improved hand hygiene

About 15,000 primary school pupils in 68 Invercargill, Christchurch and Dunedin schools will be involved in a research project to see if improving their hand hygiene makes a difference to absence due to illness in winter terms.

Researchers at the University of Otago are conducting the randomised controlled study next year which has attracted $795,205 of funding from the Health Research Council.

Principal investigator Dr Patricia Priest, who is also a senior lecturer at the university's department of preventive and social medicine, said the study will involve half the participating year 1-6 schools installing alcohol-based hand sanitisers in classrooms which pupils will line up and use before going out to play or for lunch.

The hand sanitiser will be in addition to, not instead of, usual hand-washing facilities in the schools.

The research team, which also includes Drs Rick Audas, Marion Poore, Cheryl Brunton and Ms Jo McKenzie, will also collect the number and length of absences from school pupils and teachers.

A randomly selected sample of children from each school will be followed up after they have been absent to gather information about the reasons for that and the effect of the absences on the rest of the family.

Dr Priest said Dr Poore, a medical officer of health with Public Health South, has been collecting data about the number of children absent with illness from schools in the South in recent years which showed that in any given week in the winter terms, about 10% of children were away from school.

The impact on families was potentially quite large, particularly if both parents were working.

The study would analyse the effectiveness of the sanitiser in preventing pupil absence due to illness, the cost effectiveness of the sanitiser and the economic impact of illness absence on families.

A pilot study has been held at two Dunedin schools and the team is now recruiting schools, of at least 100 pupils, to take part in the main study in terms two and three next year.

Dr Priest said the team was keen for the study not to be onerous on teachers, and the pilots showed that when pupils lined up to receive the sanitiser from the automatic dispenser, it only took about three minutes.

Before the study begins, pupils will attend a session on hand cleanliness and it will be emphasised that using the sanitiser is not a substitute for their usual hand-washing practices.

Schools will not have to pay for the sanitiser and no chemical producer is sponsoring the study.

"We're buying it like any other customer."

During the pilot, a parent had asked if the good and bad germs might be killed by using the sanitiser and that children needed to be exposed to germs to gain immunity.

Dr Priest said her response to that was that the use of the sanitiser a couple of times a day was not going to eliminate children's exposure to bugs.

"We're not talking about putting them in a glass bubble, but about keeping their hands a bit cleaner."

It was important to know whether the use of the sanitiser made a difference to illness incidence before cash-strapped schools went out and spent money on installing dispensers.

Some parents asked why "good old soap and water" could not have been used, but that could not have been done in the classroom setting and would have been difficult to monitor and ensure consistent application in the study.

The study's findings are not expected until early 2010.