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Learning Objective 1: discuss the importance of double gloving to prevent healthcare worker injury.
Learning Objective 2: describe the methods used in the study to document the effectiveness of double gloving.
Background: Needlestick/sharp injuries account for over 75% of the traumatic injuries among Health Care Workers (HCWs) in hospital settings (OSHA 2001). Surgical personnel obtain needlestick/sharp injuries in the surgical field (33.4%), at the surgical site (25.1%) and 59.7% of the time injuries occur with the non-dominant hand (Jagger, et al., 1998).
Methods: Five hundred HCWs participated in the study. Demographic data included age, sex, surgical experience, role, employee health information related to needlestick/sharp injury, treatment, and the numbers of needlestick/sharp injuries reported by surgical staff. Data collection forms were used to collect the following: 1) surgical episode event form, 2) surgical instrument rating scale, 3) employee needlestick/sharp compliance form, 4) glove data collection form and 5) glove laboratory data collection forms.
Results: When double gloving was used, visible defects were observed in 100 (1.1%) outer gloves. No defects were observed in their counterpart inner gloves. Water leaks happened in 430 (5%) outer gloves when no leak was detected in their inner gloves. Of all green-indicator gloves used, 81% (n = 4588) were within the context of double gloving. Our data suggested that the mean surgical procedure time was significantly longer (t = -9.76; p <.001) when water leaks occurred as compared to data when water leaks did not occur (M = 3:09 ± SD 1:59 hours and 2:33 ± SD 1:51 hours, respectively).
Conclusion: Water leaks and visible defects are less likely in the inner gloves than the outer gloves; double gloving provides extra protection to HCWs. The risk for glove defect (measured by water leak) increased as procedure time increased.