Wearing Ambidextrous Vinyl Gloves Does Not Impair Manual Dexterity

Universal precautions mandate that health care workers wear gloves to prevent the unintended spread of bloodborne pathogens. Gloves may affect manual dexterity, generally delaying task completion. Our previous study showed that wearing the wrong size latex surgical glove degraded manual dexterity. The use of non-sterile and non-latex gloves may limit certain risks and be more cost-effective. However, such gloves may produce different results. We hypothesized that ambidextrous vinyl examination gloves would degrade manual dexterity compared with bare hands. We studied 20 random subjects from a medical environment. Subjects performed a standard battery of Grooved Pegboard tasks while bare-handed, wearing ambidextrous non-sterile vinyl gloves that were their preferred size, a size too small, and a size too large. The order was randomized with a Latin Square design to minimize the effects of time, boredom, and fatigue on the subjects. Subjects were also invited to comment on the fit of different size gloves. ...