• Dtsch Arztebl Int · Oct 2024

    Review

    The Use of Single-Use Medical Gloves in Doctors' Practices and Hospitals.

    • Tobias Siegfried Kramer, Annika Brodzinski, Marco Paul, Hans Drexler, Simone Scheithauer, and Christine Geffers.
    • Dtsch Arztebl Int. 2024 Oct 18 (Forthcoming).

    BackgroundSingle-use medical gloves achieve their purpose only when properly used. Proper use also helps avoid undesired consequences such as excessive waste and CO2 emissions, as well as inadequate hand hygiene.MethodsIn this selective review of the primary scientific literature, we summarize the current state of knowledge on the use of single-use medical gloves in the health-care sector. We also provide further information from national recommendations, guidelines, and regulatory provisions.ResultsSingle-use medical gloves mainly serve to protect the health-care professional and are only rarely meant to promote patient safety. For reasons of occupational safety and self-protection, hand hygiene should be performed after single-use medical gloves are removed. In a study of opened glove boxes, human pathogenic bacteria were detected on around 13% of single-use medical gloves. A meta-analysis found that wearing single-use medical gloves can lower the risk of nosocomial infection (incidence rate ratio, IRR: 0.77 [0.67; 0.89]. In a randomized controlled trial, adherence for putting on single-use medical gloves without prior hand disinfection was 87%. On the other hand, where hand disinfection was expected to be performed before putting on gloves, adherence was 41%. Proper use can lower the rate of occupational skin diseases and improve adherence to hand hygiene for the five moments in which it is recommended (before and after patient contact, before aseptic procedures, after contact with potentially infectious material, and after contact with the immediate patient environment).ConclusionLimiting the use of single-use medical gloves to its proper indications promotes the safety of health-care professionals and patients and has beneficial ecological and economic effects as well.

      Pubmed     Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…

What will the 'Medical Journal of You' look like?

Start your free 21 day trial now.

We guarantee your privacy. Your email address will not be shared.