Acceptability of Hand Hygiene Intervention for Newborns in Uganda

A total of 55 pregnant women of over 34 weeks’ gestation were recruited to the intervention arm of the BabyGel study, from 5 villages. These villages were situated around Busiu Health Centre IV in Mbale District, Eastern Uganda and were selected to represent a variety of distances from each other, market areas and from the health centres. Participants were taught to use the hand rub at certain moments in their daily routine, as defined by the ‘Newborn Moments for Hand Hygiene’ poster. This was made available to all those in the intervention arm as a laminated colour poster in English or the dominant local language Lumasaba. The participants were taught verbally to use the ABHR at the moments specified in the poster and were supported by Village Health Workers.
At the end of the 3-month neonatal period, mothers from the intervention arm were invited to attend a focus group discussion (FGD) to offer their opinion on the acceptability and feasibility of the educational poster and ABHR. All 55 women in the BabyGel study intervention group were invited to participate, regardless of their level of education or literacy. A total of 35 women agreed to participate. Five focus groups were conducted throughout March and April 2016, each consisting of 6–8 participants, as summarised in Table 1.Table 1

Demographics of FGD Participants

Village	Number of participants	Mean age of participant (range)
Namakye	8	22.6 (18–30)
Bulwalasi Toma	8	27.9 (19–37)
Namunyu	6	27.5 (19–39)
Makhonje 1	7	23.1 (19–30)
Makhonje 2	6	30.3 (19–36)

Most participants were married and described their occupation as a housewife or peasant farmer. Most had only primary education. The typical house was made from mud with an iron sheet roof. Most had non-ventilated pit latrines without handwashing facilities.
The FGDs were arranged by telephone call during the participants’ 90-day follow-up survey. On the day of the focus group, a research assistant from the Sanyu Africa Research Institute (SAfRI) formalised the participants’ consent prior to the discussion.