5 6 S U P P L E M E N T T O O U T P A T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O C T O B E R 2 0 1 7
There's plenty of compelling data to back up your
efforts to convince your staff and surgeons to
double-glove, including a recent study
(osmag.net/ytfg4t) that found that most glove
perforations "go unnoticed by the surgeons and
other members of the surgical team," but that
"the incidence of perforation of double inner
gloves is significantly low as compared with sin-
gle gloves."
How much added protection does that inner
glove provide when the outer glove gets punctured? Another recent study
(osmag.net/7mvwpx) found that the perforation rate with double gloves was
27.5%, but that the perforation rate from the outer glove to the inner glove was
only 1.17%. In other words, even when punctures happened, the double-glove
wearer was protected by the inner glove in roughly 96% of occurrences.
That's all well and good, you might say, but what about the dexterity issue? This
study (osmag.net/jhq8eg) involved medical and dental school students who were
asked to perform a delicate microsurgical task, both with 1 pair of gloves and with
2 (alternating the order). There was no significant difference in the rate at which
they improved at the task, say the researchers, suggesting that "wearing 2 pairs of
surgical gloves does not negatively affect the speed at which a microsurgical pro-
cedure may be performed [and lends] support to the practice of double-gloving,
even in the setting of microsurgical fine motor tasks."
And then there's this, from a Cochrane review (osmag.net/4uzjgn) of numerous
studies: "There does not appear to be an increase in the number of perforations to
outermost gloves when two pairs of gloves are worn, suggesting that wearing two
pairs of gloves does not reduce dexterity to the extent that the glove wearer sus-
tains more perforations."
— Jim Burger
RESEARCH REVIEW
Studies Offer Support For Layered Protection
EVIDENCE-BASED Studies clearly recommend
double-gloving for staff and surgeons.
Pamela
Bevelhymer,
RN,
BSN,
CNOR
