Germs transmission risk caused by hospital gowns and gloves, study reveals

A new research reveals that healthcare workers often get contamination on their skin or clothes when removing their hospital gowns and gloves.

In a research detailed in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, researchers found that healthcare professionals have a 46-percent chance of getting contamination on their skin and clothes.

For the study, the medical staff was asked to remove gowns and gloves after having it smeared with fluorescent lotion. Under the black light, the researchers searched for lotion "contamination" on the arms, neck, face, forearms, face, clothing or hair. According to the Los Angeles Times, the workers got the lotion on clothes and skin 38 percent of the time during gown removal and 53 percent of the time when they remove their gloves. The contamination average rate is 46 percent.

There were more than 400 participants comprised of nurses, doctors, radiology technicians, phlebotomists, dietitians and physical therapists. Most of them were surprised by the results.

"It was surprising for the participants in the study to see that they frequently contaminated themselves during (personal protective equipment) removal," Dr. Curtis Donskey of the Cleveland Veterans Affairs Medical Center, lead author of the study, said via Reuters in an email.

"Most of the participants appeared to be unaware of the high risk for contamination and many reported receiving minimal or no training in putting on and taking off (personal protective equipment)," Dr. Donskey added.

Additionally, it was noted that contamination risk increased by up to 70 percent when proper protective equipment techniques were not followed. The risk is only 30 percent when the proper protocol is followed, according to UPI.

"When dealing with pathogens that are potentially fatal, the goal has to be zero contamination," Donskey explained. "In routine care settings, we would like personnel to be well trained and confident that they can minimize contamination, but would not insist on zero contamination."

Due to this, Donskey calls for a more thorough and effective anti-contamination technique because training will not reduce the likeliness to zero percent.

Dr. Michelle Doll of Virginia Commonweatlh University concurs and told Reuters in an email that the amount of gowns and gloves use matter as it can be expensive.

"Use of gowns and gloves for contact precautions on a busy inpatient unit is costly on multiple levels," Doll explained. "In situations when we do decide to use these tools (for infection prevention, we need to optimize techniques to achieve the best efficacy possible. Otherwise it is wasteful of healthcare worker efforts and hospital resources."