This paper reviews the influence of mental models on hand hygiene behaviour. Mental models are concepts of reality that depend, among other things, on personal experience. And although being imperfect, these models allow pragmatic decisionmaking in complex environments while reserving mental resources to conduct conscious behavior. Consideration of mental models could be helpful in understanding hand hygiene behavior in cases when other known influential factors can not explain failing compliance. Improvement of hand hygiene compliance could be achieved in two ways by utilizing the conecept of mental models: (1) modification of mental models that promote adverse behavior or (2) utilization of parts of models that promote desired behavior by providing beneficiary conditions.

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