Surgical handwashing practices of operating room staff: An observational study

Abstract

Objective: This descriptive and cross-sectional study aims to assess the surgical handwashing practices of operating room staff. Design: Single-blind study. Methods:The study was conducted with 66 staff (surgeons and operating room nurses) employed in the surgery department of a university hospital in Turkey. Data were collected using a Staff Information Form prepared in light of the literature to collect the participants' sociodemographic data and the Surgical Hand Washing Procedure Checklist developed according to the guidelines of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), World Health Organization (WHO) and Association of Surgical Technologists (AST). The staff assigned to operating rooms were identified, and then, their surgical handwashing practices were observed by one of the researchers. Findings: Of the participants, 77.3% were dressed suitable to the operating room field, 56.1% appropriately wet both of their hands and forearms, and 72.7% used a sufficient amount of antiseptic solution (3-5 ml) in their palms. More than half of them (51.5%) inappropriately performed the procedure of surgical handwashing (applying an antiseptic solution to hands and arms with circular motions, starting from the fingertips up to 3-5 cm above their elbows for a minute), and 47% incorrectly performed the procedure of rinsing hands and arms while keeping the hands above the elbows under running water and passing arms through the water in one direction during this process. Conclusion:In the study, it was determined that none of the team members completed the preparation, application and drying steps of the surgical handwashing procedure.Therefore, it is necessary to make arrangements that will facilitate the handwashing procedures of the personnel. Personnel-related problems, such as the duration of washing and drying methods, are possible to be avoided with periodic in-service training and with posters demonstrating the washing stages, which might lead to behavioural changes.

Nurses’ knowledge regarding recommended practices on using surgical attire in operating theatre

“…Information on recommended practices specifically related to the utilisation of head covering in the operating theatre and cleaning of electronic devices should be accessible to all nurses in operating theatre, as these showed a large significant improvement in this study. Although there seems to be a paucity in published intervention studies conducted on the topic, a quantitative study conducted in Egypt as well as an observational study in Turkey found that compliance to correct use of surgical attire and PPE was generally high among nurses in operating theatre (Awadalla, Garas & Hanafy 2019 ; Gülşen et al 2021 ). Furthermore, the pre- and post-test questionnaires conducted in both groups may have led to more awareness of the use of surgical attire among participants.…”

Monitoring the effectiveness of surgical handwashing in healthcare workers of a fourth level operating room using bioluminescence assays

“…Accordingly, this study identified that 75.81% of HCWs performed the procedure three times, as established by the WHO [21]; nevertheless, health personnel did not follow a specific pattern when washing their hands, wrists, forearms and elbows. The study developed by Gülşen et al, led to the observation that operating room staff did not display appropriate S-HW techniques such as washing their hands and arms up to 3-5 cm above their elbows with circular motions for the full time [23]; the estimated time for a good S-HW is around 5 minutes. In our study, 88.71% of HCWs spent 5 minutes doing the complete wash, while 11.29% of S-HCWs spent 3 minutes.…”