Investigation on the personal protective equipment use among nurses in operating rooms of 23 hospitals in Changsha

Objective To investigate the knowledge of standard precautions,the exposure to blood,the personal protective equipment(PPE) use practice and factors associated with performing these practices among nurses in the operating room.Method A total of 439 nurses in the operating rooms of 23 hospitals in Changsha,Hunan province were recruited by strati-fied sampling method and were investigated with a self-designed questionnaire.Results Those who thought that the blood,fluid and secretions of all patients were potential infective sources accounted for 68.6%.Exposure to blood or body fluids of pa-tients was frequent during operation for 90.0% of the nurses.The nurses wearing double gloves when contacted with the blood or fluid of patients with blood-borne infectious diseases accounted for 34.2%.When performing operations for patients with blood-borne infectious diseases,9.6% of the instruments nurses and 8.4% of the roving nurses wore protective goggles, 23.0% of the instruments nurses and 17.3% of the circulating nurses wore special protective suits.When cleaning operating instruments,12.5% and 21.2% of the nurses wore goggles and special protective suits,respectively.Almost half of the hospitals hadn't provided enough PPE.Among the hospitals with enough protective devices,inconvenient to operations was thought as the barriers to the use of gloves,goggles and special protective suites,which accounted for 60.4%,57.3% and 58.3%,respectively.Conclusion The risk of occupational exposure to blood-borne infectious diseases is high and the utilization ratio of PPE is low with various reasons.The operating room nurses' knowledge of standard precautions needs to be strengthened.