Surgical Gloves Damaging Due to Various Factors during Foot and Hand Orthopedic Plating Procedures Download PDF

Introduction: The operation teams are exposed to infectious and pathogenic agents during surgical procedures. Surgical gloves, as aseptic tools, prevent cutaneous bacterial infections from being transferred from the personnel to the surgery environment. This issue is highly important in orthopedic operations due to the presence of sharp and cutting instruments. The present study has been performed with the objective of investigating the extent to which the surgical gloves are damaged by various factors during plating operations or foot and hand orthopedic surgeries. Method: in the present descriptive-analytical study, 384 surgical gloves (192 pairs) were selected as the study sample volume. The gloves were all made of the same material and they were consisted of two layers. The gloves were selected based on a simple sampling study method. The study environment was the orthopedic and nerves operating room in Ayatollah Kashani Hospital associated with Isfahan’s Medical Sciences University. The study population included the gloves wore by the scrubbed individuals during foot and hand orthopedic plating operations. Data collection tools were comprised of questionnaires and checklists all constructed by the researcher. Questionnaire contained demographic information, surgery type and the operation team members and the checklists covered items pertaining to the surgical gloves damages. The present study made use of water-leak test to evaluate whether the gloves have been damaged or not. To analyze the data, descriptive statistics tests and analytical statistical tests were applied and the data were further inspected in the SPSS software, ver. 22. Results: the damage rate in hand plating surgeries was equal to 18.8% (36.192) and it was found equal to 37.9% (67.192) for foot plating operations. As it is seen the damage rates are significantly higher in foot plating surgeries (P<0.05). In hand plating operations, the greatest number of the obvious damages was seen in a time span from 30 min to 60 min; additionally, the greatest number of the damages was seen in a time span from 60 min to 90 min during foot plating surgeries. Among the gloves used by the operation team members, the assistant surgeons’ gloves were found most frequently damaged and the great majority of the damages belonged to the thumb and forefinger regions. The damage rate was predominantly lower in the interior layer of the gloves respectively to the outer layer. Discussion and Conclusion: Wearing bi-layer gloves can cause a reduction in the damage to the interior layers and therefore lowers the risk of needle sticking injuries and transfer of infection between the operation team members. According to the results, operation team members, especially the surgeons and their assistants, are suggested to preferentially check their gloves for any damage in their dominant hands and their forefingers as well as their thumbs and palms so as to mitigate the infection transfer rate. Also, based on the results, it is suggested that the gloves should be routinely replaced in hand plating operations after 60 minutes and after 90 minutes in foot plating operations.