BMC Public Health Research article What infection control measures will people carry out to reduce transmission of pandemic influenza? A focus group study Leanne G Morrison*† and Lucy Yardley† BioMed Central Open Access Address: School of Psychology, University of Southampton, University Road, Southampton, Hampshire, UK Email: Leanne G Morrison* - lm904@soton.ac.uk; Lucy Yardley - L.Yardley@soton.ac.uk * Corresponding author †Equal contributors Published: 23 July 2009 BMC Public Health 2009, 9:258 doi:10.1186/1471-2458-9-258 This article is available from: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/9/258 Received: 6 May 2009 Accepted: 23 July 2009 © 2009 Morrison and Yardley; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Background: Pandemic influenza poses a future health threat against which infection control behaviours may be an important defence. However, there is little qualitative research examining perceptions of infection control measures in the context of pandemic influenza. Methods: Eight focus groups and one interview were conducted with a purposive sample of 31 participants. Participants were invited to discuss their perceptions of infection transmission and likely adherence to infection control measures in both non-pandemic and pandemic contexts. Infection control measures discussed included handwashing, social distancing and cough hygiene (e.g. covering mouth, disposing of tissues immediately etc.). Results: Thematic analysis revealed that although participants were knowledgeable about infection transmission, most expressed unfavourable attitudes toward control behaviours in non-pandemic situations. However, with the provision of adequate education about control measures and appropriate practical support (e.g. memory aids, access to facilities), most individuals report that they are likely to adhere to infection control protocols in the event of a pandemic. Of the behaviours likely to influence infection transmission, handwashing was regarded by our participants as more feasible than cough and sneeze hygiene and more acceptable than social distancing. Conclusion: Handwashing could prove a useful target for health promotion, but interventions to promote infection control may need to address a number of factors identified within this study as potential barriers to carrying out infection control behaviours. Background The risk of a pandemic outbreak of influenza is consid- ered high. The World Health Organisation estimates that over seven million deaths worldwide may result [1]. Sev- eral behaviours have been recommended in order to limit the spread of influenza in the event of a pandemic [2]. These include handwashing [3-5], social distancing [6,7] and cough and sneeze hygiene measures. A number of surveys have been carried out in order to examine factors associated with adherence to these behav- iours. Particular attention has been paid to improving the handwashing practices of healthcare workers (HCWs) [8,9] and understanding implementation of infection control procedures during previous epidemics such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) [10-13]. This research has identified a positive association between Page 1 of 11 (page number not for citation purposes)