Effectiveness of alcohol-based hand disinfectants in a public administration: Impact on health and work performance related to acute respiratory symptoms and diarrhoea

Our study involved a prospective, controlled, intervention-control group design to assess the epidemiological and economical impact of alcohol-based hand disinfectants use at work place. Volunteers in public administrations in the municipality of the city of Greifswald were randomized in two groups. Participants in the intervention group were provided with alcoholic hand disinfection, the control group was unchanged. Respiratory and gastrointestinal symptoms and days of work were recorded based on a monthly questionnaire over one year. On the whole, 1230 person months were evaluated.Hand disinfection reduced the number of episodes of illness for the majority of the registered symptoms. This effect became statistically significant for common cold (OR = 0.35 [0.17 - 0.71], p = 0.003), fever (OR = 0.38 [0.14-0.99], p = 0.035) and coughing (OR = 0.45 [0.22 - 0.91], p = 0.02). Participants in the intervention group reported less days ill for most symptoms assessed, e.g. colds (2.07 vs. 2.78%, p = 0.008), fever (0.25 vs. 0.31%, p = 0.037) and cough (1.85 vs. 2.00%, p = 0.024). For diarrhoea, the odds ratio for being absent became statistically significant too (0.11 (CI 0.01 - 0.93).Hand disinfection can easily be introduced and maintained outside clinical settings as part of the daily hand hygiene. Therefore it appears as an interesting, cost-efficient method within the scope of company health support programmes.ISRCTN: ISRCTN96340690Absenteeism and reduced productivity due to communicable illness, in particular acute infectious respiratory and gastrointestinal disease, are a major problem for national economies worldwide [1-5]. But because acute upper respiratory infections ("common cold") or mild cases of infectious gastrointestinal illness have a very low mortality, are in most cases short timed and self limiting they are assumed to be less costly per case than chronic conditions. Therefore, their economical impact is often underestimated and they are normally not in t