Can the emotion of disgust be harnessed to promote hand hygiene? Experimental and field-based tests

Abstract

Two studies carried out in Sydney, Australia explored whether inducing disgust may be a useful addition to hand-hygiene interventions. Experiment 1 employed a novel laboratory measure of hand hygiene, and tested whether a brief (3-min) video-based intervention using disgust/education, improved hand hygiene relative to education alone and a control condition. On test, a week later, the disgust intervention significantly exceeded the education and control condition combined, although the effect size was modest. Experiment 2 examined the generality of this effect in a field study. During a baseline period, soap and paper towel use in a series of washrooms were covertly monitored. This was followed by an intervention period, in which two washrooms received disgust/education-based posters and a further two, educational posters, exhorting participants to wash their hands. A follow-up period, after the posters were removed, was also monitored. The disgust-based intervention was significantly better at promoting hand hygiene. These findings suggest that even brief disgust-based interventions may be successful and that these can be tested and developed under laboratory conditions.