Authors: Barbara Keeney RN, Jesse Cozean MBA, Colette Cozean PhD, Jake Bernstein.
Rationale: With so many children in close proximity, schools can be breeding grounds for illness. Hand hygiene is the most effective way to prevent the transmission of germs, but children often don’t wash their hands or fail to wash completely. Alcohol sanitizers have no persistent efficacy and concerns about flammability and ingestion limit their ability to be used in schools. A hand sanitizer capable of reducing illness absenteeism without these limitations is needed. This clinical trial evaluated the efficacy of a non-flammable, water-based hand sanitizer with both immediate and persistent antimicrobial efficacy in reducing illness absenteeism and illness outbreaks in a classroom setting.
Methods: A controlled, crossover study comparing different hand hygiene products was conducted at two sister schools specializing in teaching students with autism. One facility used traditional soap and water while the other added a persistent, water-based hand sanitizer (Zylast® Antiseptic Lotion, 0.2% BZT) and an antibacterial foaming soap (Zylast®, 0.2% BZT). After approximately eight weeks, the campuses switched products after a one-week washout phase. Administrators gathered illness absenteeism data for both students and staff over the course of the school year.
Results: At the campus where the novel hand hygiene products were used, the rate of illness absenteeism fell from 4.6% to 2.8% among students, a significant reduction of 38.9% (p = 0.03). Among the staff, illness absenteeism was reduced by 24.3% (p = 0.1) from 4.2% to 3.2%. Illness outbreaks, where more than 10% of students or staff were ill at the same time, was reduced by 87.5%.
Conclusion: The addition of a non-flammable, water-based antiseptic with both immediate and persistent efficacy was effective in reducing illness absenteeism among both students and staff in a school setting. This confirms previous results in school settings demonstrating the ability of persistent, water-based products to safely reduce illness absenteeism. This also confirms prior results with this test product demonstrating reductions in nosocomial infections in hospital and long-term care facility settings over traditional hand hygiene products.
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