PhD Scientific Days 2022

Health Sciences (Poster discussion will take place in the Aula during the Coffee Break)

Awareness of the WHO's Glove Removal Guideline Among Hungarian Healthcare Workers

Text of the abstract

Medical gloves are one of the most commonly used Personal Protective Equipment in hospitals. Wearing gloves can help reduce the transmission of pathogens. The benefit of gloves depends on the appropriateness of its use. The World Health Organization (WHO) has a stepwise guideline on how to remove gloves safely. This guideline is similar to the WHO ‘how to handrub’ poster, which is nowadays can be seen everywhere, from schools to restaurants, so almost everyone is familiar with it.
Our study aims to survey healthcare workers' (HCW) level of knowledge of this guideline.
HCWs from a Hungarian hospital voluntarily participated in this study. Participants filled a questionnaire that focused on several areas of medical gloves use. They were also asked to remove a glove as they usually do while the investigators made a video recording about the removal, and analyzed it retrospectively.
18 HCWs participated in the study. Only 41% of them were familiar with the WHO glove removal guideline. 24% of them had seen the document before, but could not recall it, while 35% of them never saw it. Only 41% of the participants were educated about gloves removal during their studies. 53% of them were trained on gloves removal at their workplace; during a some-extent organized training, or was simply educated by a college. 18% of the participants never had these trainings; no one never educated them how to safety remove a glove. By analyzing the video recording we concluded that 19% performed gloves removal according to the WHO guideline (for non-sterile gloves), 31% performed it quite similarly to the WHO guideline, while 50% of the participants used different techniques. Only 56% performed an appropriate technique, meaning that the technique not allowed the contamination on the glove to be transferred to the skin, as 44% potentially contaminated themselves.
Gloves removal is a poorly educated but very important skill. Much more attention should be paid to teaching and monitoring gloves removal, as the development in that field can very effectively prevent the spread of infections.
B.S was supported by the ÚNKP-21-4-I-SE-13 New National Excellence Program of the Ministry for Innovation and Technology from the source of the National Research, Development and Innovation Fund.