Self-reported compliance with infection prevention and control of healthcare workers in Dutch residential care facilities for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-sectional study.

Background: Compliance of healthcare workers (HCWs) with infection prevention and control (IPC) is crucial to resident safety. Nevertheless, HCWs' compliance with IPC has not been previously studied in a disability care setting.

Objective: To assess levels of self-reported compliance with IPC among HCWs in residential care facilities (RCFs) for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDDs), and to assess whether IPC compliance varies among different professional groups.

Methods: A total of 285 HCWs from 16 Dutch RCFs completed an online questionnaire assessing 16 IPC procedures, following national guidelines. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and chi-square tests to assess potential differences in compliance between professional groups.

Results: Overall, HCWs complied on average with 68.7% of IPC. Only 30.1% of HCWs had sufficient compliance (defined as compliance with ≥80% of IPC practices). Compliance varied considerably between individual IPC procedures, in which compliance with wearing short-sleeved clothes (30.9%) and using disposable protective clothing (32.7%) were the lowest. Compliance with jewellery and hair regulations was suboptimal (45.6% and 55.4%, respectively). Non-medical professionals complied with IPC less frequently (social workers, 24.2%; behavioural specialists, 12.9%) than medical professionals (47.4%) (p < 0.001).

Conclusions: The majority of HCWs had suboptimal compliance with IPC. As IPC compliance differs between professionals, recommendations are to 1) implement tailored education and training programmes, and 2) pursue a facility-wide minimum required IPC compliance. Implementing and communicating a minimum set of IPC procedures - including hand hygiene, personal hygiene, and clothing requirements - applying to all professionals is important to minimise the infection transmission risk in RCFs for people with IDDs.