Antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which occurs when bugs develop the ability to defeat the medicines (e.g., antibiotics) designed to kill them, poses a major threat to human health. Infection and protection control (IPC) training has a vital role to play in containing the rise of AMR, both by reducing infections and in the prescribing of antibiotics. The microbiological sciences and IPC regimes are vital for understanding the nature and behaviours of pathogens, their effects on us, and the best ways to mitigate their undesirable consequences. Conventional approaches to IPC training are very much predicated on content from these dominant epistemologies.

Given that each and all of us must play our part in reducing infections and antibiotic use, are these current approaches to IPC training - alone - the most effective way of engaging the wider lay public and non-specialist professionals, and influencing preventative behaviours?

This presentation briefly reflects on the findings of two approaches, in linked but separate studies, to developing IPC training interventions for a range of healthcare professionals (HCP). Each involved an inter-disciplinary team, the co-development of content, novel visual methods to ‘make the invisible [pathogens and behaviours], visible’, and an interactive digital model of the environment in which infection scenarios were acted out on a tablet or mobile app. Each study involved a mixed team of research disciplines including co-design, software engineering, microbiology, IPC training, and nursing or veterinary practice.

Study 1: hospital ward: Content was heavily influenced by microbiological sciences and proven efficacy of IPC regimes, naming common healthcare acquired infections (HAI) found in the hospital ward setting, their locations within environments or people, routes of transmission, persistence, and impact of IPC measures. The novelty was in portraying typical IPC scenarios in a visual and interactive manner within a digital model of the hospital ward. Participant trainees reported improved awareness and understanding of the pathogens responsible for HAI, and the types of information relevant for different staff cohorts. The tool appeared to offer staff a new perspective on pathogens, being able to ‘see’ them contextualised in the virtual ward, making them seem more real.

Study 2: veterinary practice: Set in a digital model of a veterinary practice, this departed from typical microbiological and IPC training content and approaches. Pathogens were not named but implicated in scenarios inviting trainees to identify primary and secondary sources of infection, behaviours (risky or precautionary) potentially spreading or containing infections and mitigating IPC measures. Driving the central narrative was the question: ‘What can be done to get the patient [a dog] into theatre with as little contamination as possible’. This approach was found to change perception of risky behaviours in a sample population of veterinary practitioners. Trainees also found that the 3D graphics enhanced the delivery of training content by making difficult and abstract contamination concepts easy to understand.
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There is little robust evaluation of the effectiveness of current IPC training. This presentation questions the epistemological conventions of IPC training as the sole approach to be considered when engaging the wider, non-IPC specialist audience. The author posits that creative approaches to IPC training derived from the arts and humanities may offer effective complementary techniques to achieving desirable shifts in perception and behaviour, providing a useful role, alongside more conventional approaches, in helping to contain AMR.