Does hand care ruin hand disinfection?

Hand washing and hand disinfection put considerable stress on the skin thus requiring specific hand care. It is important however that the care produc ts do not impair the effect of hand disinfectants. We therefore investigate d the interaction of two hand care products (oil-in-water and water-in-oil emulsions) on the microbicidal efficacy of different alcoholic hand-rubs, u sing the contamination model described in EN 1500. The mean log(10)-reducti on factors for three hand-rubs varied between 4.03 and 4.22 compared with 3 .76 and 4.43 for six possible combinations of hand-rubs and hand care produ cts applied immediately prior to disinfect, ion. Differences between reduct ion factors achieved with hand-rubs alone and in combination with hand care were not significant. Repeated application of care products with subsequen t hand disinfection also did not result in significantly lower reduction fa ctors than achieved with hand disinfection alone. Our data suggest that adm inistration of selected products for hand care does not necessarily impair hand disinfection and is therefore recommended for occupational health as w ell as for infection control reasons. (C) 2001 The Hospital Infection Socie ty.