between tasks and procedures on the same patient, and after contact with material that may contain a high concentration of microorganisms
The wearing of gloves is included in the standard principles for preventing healthcare associated infections. A continued wearing of gloves may, however, result in the transmission of organisms instead of preventing infections. Few studies have explored how common it is for surfaces to be touched by potentially contaminated gloves.
Methods
Secondary analysis of field notes from 48 hours of unstructured observations of healthcare personnel's actions during patient care. The new focus was on to what extent healthcare personnel wore gloves that should have been removed or changed, what surfaces were touched by contaminated gloves and what patient-related activities were involved.
Results
A continued wearing of gloves occurred in about half of the observed episodes of patient care. On average, 3.3 surfaces were touched by contaminated gloves. The surfaces most frequently touched were ‘unused single-use items’, ‘equipment controls/switches/regulators/flush buttons’ and ‘bed linen’. This occurred mostly while helping patients with ‘personal hygiene’, when performing ‘test taking’ or during procedures involving the operation of medical or other ‘equipment’.
Conclusion
The continued wearing of gloves during patient-related activities carries the risk of organism transmission, as the gloves touch many surfaces. The most critical moments seem to be when the use of gloves is considered essential. A better understanding of the motivators of improper glove-use behaviour is needed to develop interventions that rectify the improper use of gloves.
PPE is in high demand during the COVID crisis and must be used appropriately and responsibly at all times. Apply standard precautions when providing client care including Handwashing, Social Distancing, Respiratory Etiquette, Gloves and Aprons. Disposable gloves are a single-use item. They should only be used when coming into contact with body fluids, broken skin, dirty instruments and harmful substances such as chemicals and disinfectants. Change them after each task is completed. Complete handwashing between each glove change
For example, if you are attending to the hygiene of a client who has been incontinent and then needs assistance with eye care, you need to remove gloves and carry out hand hygiene between these two care episodes.
Gloves are not a substitute for hand hygiene. It is important that staff apply hand washing before putting them on when delivering care to clients, and after removal of items.
When to Wear Gloves
Wear disposable, single-use gloves for:
- All activities that have a risk of contact with blood or body fluids
- Direct contact with broken skin for examples wound or a rash
- Direct contact with eyes, inside the nose and mouth
- For handling equipment likely to be soiled with blood or body fluids
- Cleaning surfaces or handling clothing or linen soiled with body fluids.
Gloves carry germs from one client to another or from one part of the body to another so they must be changed:
- Between different care episodes for the same client.
- Discard gloves after each use in the client’s home, never wear them while leaving a house and never re-use them when caring for another client. They are single-use only.
Remember: Wear gloves when required for client care appropriately. Do not wear them for any other tasks including food preparation, shopping or for personal use.
Being considerate of PPE use ensures that we all have enough appropriate equipment to deliver care safely to our clients.
The objective of this review is to evaluate the evidence regarding clinical use of gloves in the prevention of cross transmission.
The following questions will be addressed in this review:
- Does glove usage prevent the contamination of HCWs'hands and reduce cross transmission?
- What are the rates of adherence to glove utilization among HCWs?
- What is the inappropriate use of gloves among HCWs?
- How the wearing gloves impact on adherence to hand hygiene among HCWs?
Background:
Health care workers(HCWs)'hands become contaminated by pathogens and this increases linearly with time on hands during patient care.(1) Therefore, cross transmission of microorganisms by the hands of HCWs is considered the most likely means of transmission of hospital-acquired infection.(2, 3) This risk can be minimized by thorough hand washing and the use of gloves. Gloves are worn to protect the hands from contamination with organic matter and microorganisms, and to reduce the risks of transmission of microorganisms from HCWs to patients and vice versa. (4, 5) Gloves should be worn for invasive procedures, any contact with sterile sites, non-intact skin, mucous membranes and exposure to blood, all other body fluids and sharp or contaminated instruments. (6, 7) Two prospective controlled trials provide evidence that wearing gloves can help reduce transmission of pathogens in health-care settings.(8, 9) In addition, the efficacy of gloves in preventing contamination of HCWs'hands has been confirmed in several observational studies.(10-12) However, gloves do not provide complete protection against hand contamination. Bacterial flora from patients was found on the hands of up to 30% of HCWs who had worn gloves during patient contact.(1, 10) Bacterial can gain access to the caregivers' hands via small defects in gloves or by contamination of hands during glove removal.(13-15) Gloves often leak during use and, in fact, may leak before use. (16)
Gloves must be worn as single-use items, and changed between different patients and between different care/treatment activities on the same patient to prevent cross-contamination of body sites. (4, 5, 7),(4, 5, 7) Nevertheless, inappropriate use of gloves is observed regularly worldwide. Three observational studies found that healthcare workers did not always remove gloves after previous care and gloves were not always changed between each patient contact.(17-19) Furthermore, one observational study demonstrated that gloves were overused in healthcare environments.(19) The unnecessary and inappropriate use of gloves results in a waste of resources and may increase the risk of cross transmission. In addition, inappropriate use of gloves increases the wearer's exposure to the chemicals and accelerants in the glove material, which can result in skin sensitization or inability to work. (5)
Preventing cross contamination of hands by using gloves is considered important because hand washing or hand antisepsis may not remove all potential pathogens when hands are heavily contaminated. (19, 20) Although gloves offer protection, they do not provide complete protection against hand contamination, therefore, hands should always be decontaminated after glove removal.(21) Hand hygiene following glove removal further ensures that the hands will not carry potentially infectious material that might have penetrated through unrecognized tears or that could contaminate the hands during glove removal.(10, 11, 21) The impact of wearing gloves on adherence to hand hygiene policies has not been definitely established, since observational studies have yielded contradictory results. (17, 18, 22-25) Furthermore, failure to remove gloves and to wash hands when moving between patients without change, can result in the subsequent cross-transmission of nosocomial pathogens. (26, 27)Therefore, the influence of glove use on hand hygiene practice is unclear. Given the impact of glove usage on cross-transmission, we will conduct a systematic review to contribute to the understanding of the efficacy of glove use in the prevention of cross transmission and identify specific areas for further research.
A search of JBI Library of Systematic Reviews, Cochrane Library of Systematic Reviews, DARE database, MEDLINE was performed and no existing systematic reviews on this topic.
Definitions of terms:
Clinical use of glove or glove usage refers to the wearing of gloves to either prevent the hands becoming contaminated with organic matter or microorganisms, or to prevent the transfer of microorganisms to both patients and healthcare workers. The choice of glove to be use should be based on an assessment of the task of transmission of microorganisms to the patient, and the risk of contamination to the healthcare worker by patients' blood, body fluids, secretions and excretions.
Cross transmission is defined as the method by which any potentially infecting agent is spread from the healthcare worker to the patient and vice versa, as well as from one patient to another.
Prevention of cross transmission refers to the management of those factors that could lead to spread microorganisms so as to prevent the occurrence of the disease.
Reduction of cross transmission refers to the act of decreasing the risk of germ dissemination to the environment and of transmission from the healthcare worker to the patient and vice versa, as well as from one patient to another.
Contamination of HCWs'hands refers to the presence of microorganisms on a surface of HCW's hands-therefore, a potential source for transmission.
Inappropriate use of gloves among HCWs is defined as the use of gloves when not indicated which represents a waste of resources and may increase the risk of cross-transmission. It is also refers to HCWs failing to remove gloves between patients or failing to change gloves during the care of a single patient, thus facilitating the spread of microorganisms.
Adherence to hand hygiene among HCWs refers to readily acting in accordance with the guideline for hand hygiene in the care of all patients. Adherence to the guideline is defined as either washing the hands with soap or antiseptic and water or rubbing the hands with alcohol-based solutions.
Inclusion Criteria
Types of studies
This review will consider any randomized clinical trails (RCTs) that evaluate the use of gloves in the prevention of cross transmission. In the absence of RCTs, other research designs such as before and after studies, descriptive or observational studies will be considered for inclusion in order to identify the best available evidence related to the rates of adherence to glove usage in caring for patient and the inappropriate use of gloves.
Types of participants
This review will consider studies that include health care workers.
Types of intervention
The review will consider studies that evaluated glove utilization.
Types of outcome measures
The outcomes of interest include:
Contamination of HCWs'hands measured for example as the number of bacterial colonies grown from the fingertips of the HCW's dominant hand at the end of the observation period.
Transmission of infections measured for example as hospital-acquired infection transferred from one patient to another via contaminated gloved hands. The potential for microbial transmission is defined as an instance where gloves contacted mucous membranes, patient skin, moist body substances or environment and gloves are not changed before performing a care necessitating strict aseptic precautions on the same patient or another patient.
Adherence to glove usage measured for example as the number of observations of correct performance per number of observations of glove usage opportunity.
Inappropriate uses of gloves measured for example as the number of observations of gloving when not indicated or failure to remove gloves between patients and to change gloves during the care of a single patient.
Adherence to hand hygiene measured for example as the number of observations of correct performance per number of observations of hand hygiene opportunity.
Search strategy
The comprehensive search strategy aims to find both published and unpublished studies. The time period of the search cover articles published from 2000 to the present day in English and Thai language. A three-step search strategy will be utilized in each component of this review. An initial phase limited search of MEDLINE and CINAHL will be undertaken. A second search using all identified keywords and index terms will then undertake across all included databases. Thirdly, the reference lists or bibliographies of all identified reports and articles will be hand searched for additional studies.
The following databases to be searched will include:
MEDLINE
CINAHL
EMBASE
The Cochrane Library
PubMed,
EBSCO Host Research Databases,
Blackwell synergy.
Individual search strategies will be developed for each database, adopting the different terminology of index thesauri if available.
Hand searching of the most recent issues of the following journals will be conducted for additional references:
American Journal of Infection Control
Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology
Hospital Infection, Journal of the Medical Association of Thailand
Nursing Newsletter,
Bulletin of Nosocomial Infection Control Group of Thailand,
Nursing Journal,
Journal of Health Science.
The search will be conducted to locate relevant unpublished materials, such as conference papers, research reports, Digital-dissertations, WHO (World Health Organization, CDC (Centre for Disease Prevention and Control). Content experts will be contacted in order to provide other alternatives for securing relevant literature.
All studies identified during the databases search will be assessed for relevance to the review using a study eligibility tool developed by reviewers (see ). Full reports will be retrieved for all studies that meet the inclusion criteria as assessed independently by two reviewers. Any discrepancies in reviewer selections will be resolved at a meeting between reviewers prior to selected articles being retrieved. Those studies meeting the inclusion criteria will be submitted to critical appraisal.
Initial keywords or term:
include: gloves, transmission, infection, adherence, hand hygiene.
Search for Grey Literature
The grey literature search will consist of conducting an online search of databases and websites including:
- MEDNAR
- Dissertation International
- Conference Proceedings
- Google
Assessment of methodological quality
Papers selected for retrieval will be assessed by two independently reviewers for methodology quality prior to inclusion in the review using standardized critical appraisal instruments from the Joanna Briggs institution (JBI) Meta Analysis of Statistics Assessment and Review Instrument (JBI-MAStARI) (see ). Any discrepancies arise between the reviewers will be resolved through discussion between the reviewers.
Data will be extracted from papers included in the review using the Joanna Briggs Institute Meta-Analysis of Statistics Assessment and Review Instrument (JBI-MASTARI) (see ).
The data extraction will include specific details about the interventions, populations, study methods and outcomes of significance to the review question and specific objective.
Data synthesis
Where possible, study results will be pooled in statistical meta-analysis using the Joanna Briggs Institute Meta-Analysis of Statistics Assessment and Review Instrument (JBI-MASTARI). All results will be subject to double data entry. Heterogeneity between combined studies will be tested using chi-square test. Odds ratio (for categorical outcome data) or weighted mean differences (for continuous) and their 95% confidence intervals will be calculated for analysis. Where statistical pooling is not possible the findings will be summarized in a narrative form.
When should gloves be changed when you are working on the same patient?
It's absolutely vital that medical caregivers change gloves between seeing patients. Never pocket your gloves and re-use the same pair. Instead, properly dispose of your gloves after you care for a patient. This ensures that you don't spread infection from one patient to another, but it also protects you.
How often should gloves be changed during continuous use?
After 4 Continuous Hours
Bacteria and viruses can grow to dangerous levels if allowed. If your gloves haven't become torn or dirty, the FDA recommends washing hands and putting on new gloves after 4 hours of continuous use. After 4 hours, pathogens could spread and contaminate the food you are working on.
How often should you change gloves if only working on one task?
They may only be used for one task and must be discarded if damaged or if the worker is interrupted during their task. If a worker is performing the same task, the gloves must be changed every four hours because that's long enough for pathogens to multiply to dangerous levels.
What are 3 rules around gloves?
Once you've put them on, check the gloves for rips or tears. NEVER blow into gloves. NEVER roll gloves to make them easier to put on. Check your local regulatory requirements.
