American journal of infection control
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Am J Infect Control · May 2012
Effect of single- versus double-gloving on virus transfer to health care workers' skin and clothing during removal of personal protective equipment.
The removal of personal protective equipment (PPE) after patient care may result in transfer of virus to hands and clothing of health care workers (HCWs). The risk of transfer can be modeled using harmless viruses to obtain quantitative data. To determine whether double-gloving reduces virus transfer to HCWs' hands and clothing during removal of contaminated PPE, we conducted a human challenge study using bacteriophages to compare the frequency and quantity of virus transfer to hands and clothes during PPE removal with single-gloving and double-gloving technique. ⋯ Our comparison of double-gloving and single-gloving using a simulation system with MS2 and a most-probable number method suggests that double gloving can reduce the risk of viral contamination of HCWs' hands during PPE removal. If incorporated into practice when full PPE is worn, this practice may reduce the risk of viral contamination of HCWs' hands during PPE removal. The use of double gloves should be explored in larger controlled studies.
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Am J Infect Control · May 2012
Effect of surgical site infections with waterless and traditional hand scrubbing protocols on bacterial growth.
Alcohol-based antiseptic scrub formulation has long been used for hand cleansing in the operating room. Recently, a waterless surgical scrub formulation containing 1% chlorhexidine gluconate was developed to provide a comparable antiseptic effect. The present study explored the scrub time required when using waterless hand scrub and traditional hand scrub formulations for operating room staff and compared bacterial growth on the hands after surgical hand scrubbing in the 2 groups. ⋯ Our findings suggest that waterless hand scrub is as effective as traditional hand scrub in cleansing the hands of microorganisms and more efficient in terms of scrub time.
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Am J Infect Control · May 2012
Impact of multiple consecutive donnings on filtering facepiece respirator fit.
A concern with reuse of National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health-certified N95 filtering facepiece respirators (FFRs) is that multiple donnings could stress FFR components, impairing fit. This study investigated the impact of multiple donnings on the facepiece fit of 6 N95 FFR models using a group of 10 experienced test subjects per model. ⋯ Our results show that multiple donnings had a model-dependent impact on fit for the 6 N95 models evaluated. The data suggest that 5 consecutive donnings can be performed before FFs consistently drop below 100.