Can the Emotion of Disgust be Harnessed to Promote Hand Hygiene?: Experimental and Field-based Tests.

Two studies carried out in Sydney, Australia explored whether inducing disgust may be a useful addition to hand-hygiene interventions. Experiment 1 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. In Experiment 2 , 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 2 washrooms received disgust/education-based posters and a further two, educational posters, exhorting participants to wash their hands. The disgust-based intervention was significantly better at promoting hand hygiene. Social Science & Medicine. 2009;68:1006-12.