Psychometric testing of the Swedish translation of the PPCS-R suggests a good construct validity, and the construct and its six factors are conceptually relevant among the Swedish OR nurses and RNAs.

Aim To discuss specialist operating theatre nurses’ competence in relation to the general six core competencies and patient safety. Design A discursive analysis of legal statutes and scientific articles. Methods Swedish legal statutes and an overview of scientific articles on operating theatre nursing were deductively analysed and classified into healthcare providers’ general six core competencies. Results All healthcare professionals should possess the general core competencies, regardless of their discipline. The specific content within these competencies differs between disciplines. The specialized operating theatre nurse is the only healthcare professional having the competence to be responsible for asepsis, instrumentation, infection and complication, control and management of biological specimens during the surgical procedure. Besides operating theatre nurses, no other healthcare profession has the formal education, competence or skills to perform operating theatre nursing care in the theatre during the surgical procedure. Operating theatre nurse competence is therefore indispensable to ensure patient safety during surgery.

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Staphylococcus epidermidis is a versatile agent, being both a commensal and a nosocomial pathogen usually with an opportunistic role in association with implanted foreign body materials. Pre-operative antiseptic preparation is an important strategy for reducing the risk of complications such as surgical site infection (SSI). Currently, the most widely used antiseptics are alcohols, quaternary ammonium compounds (QACs), and the bisbiguanide chlorhexidine. Occurrence of resistance to the latter agent has drawn increasing attention. The aim of this study was to investigate if decreased susceptibility to chlorhexidine among S. epidermidis was present in our setting, a Swedish university hospital. Staphylococcus epidermidis (n = 143), retrospectively collected, were obtained from prosthetic joint infections (PJI) (n = 61), post-operative infections after cardiac surgery (n = 31), and the skin of the chest after routine disinfection prior to cardiac surgery (n = 27). In addition, 24 commensal isolates were included. Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of chlorhexidine was determined on Mueller Hinton agar plates supplemented with serial dilutions of chlorhexidine. Five QAC resistance genes, qacA/B, smr, qacH, qacJ, and qacG, were detected using PCR. Decreased susceptibility to chlorhexidine was found in 54% of PJI isolates, 68% of cardiac isolates, 21% of commensal isolates, and 7% of skin isolates from cardiac patients, respectively. The qacA/B gene was present in 62/143 isolates (43%), smr in 8/143 (6%), and qacH in one isolate (0.7%). The qacA/B gene was found in 52% of PJI isolates, 61% of cardiac isolates, 25% of commensal isolates, and 19% of the skin isolates. In conclusion, decreased susceptibility to chlorhexidine, as well as QAC resistance genes, were prevalent among S. epidermidis isolates associated with deep SSIs.