You are here

  • Home
  • Archive
  • Volume 1, Issue 2
  • A 2 minute surgical hand scrub was associated with higher, but not clinically significant, bacteria counts compared with a 3 minute hand scrub

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Treatment
A 2 minute surgical hand scrub was associated with higher, but not clinically significant, bacteria counts compared with a 3 minute hand scrub

https://doi.org/10.1136/ebn.1.2.47

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    Wheelock SM, Lookinland S. Effect of surgical hand scrub time on subsequent bacterial growth. AORN J 1997 Jun; 65 : 1087 –98. OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed

    Objective

    To determine whether a 2 minute surgical hand scrub is as effective as a 3 minute surgical hand scrub for reducing bacterial growth on the hands of operating room staff.

    Design

    Randomised crossover study.

    Setting

    The operating room of a 177 bed tertiary care children's hospital in California, USA.

    Participants

    25 staff members (72% women) who worked in the hospital's operating room as perioperative registered nurses (n=21) or surgical technologists (n=4) volunteered to participate. Mean perioperative experience was 6.7 years and hand size ranged from surgical glove size 5.5 to 8.

    Intervention

    Participants were allocated to 2 minute or 3 minute scrub times for a first trial, and after a minimum of 7 days were allocated to the alternative scrub time. Participants, under the supervision of the study investigators, scrubbed …

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Source of funding: not stated.

    • For article reprint: Dr S Lookinland, Community Health Systems, Fresno, CA, USA. Fax +1 209 266 3876.