title: Surgical hand scrub practices in orthopaedic surgery.
abstract: The purpose of this study was to determine whether the practice of surgical hand scrubbing among orthopaedic surgeons, faculty, residents, and nurses met the institution's recommended 5-minute scrub policy and how often a 2-minute surgical hand scrub was used. Forty-eight subjects' hand scrub times were recorded discreetly for a total of 125 observations. All individuals scrubbed for a mean of 2.54 minutes and all scrubbed less than the 5-minute institutionally recommended policy. We found that 35.2% scrubbed less than 2 minutes and 64.8% scrubbed greater than 2 minutes. The subjects studied were polled to determine whether they knew the scrub policy, the minimum effective scrub time, and their perception of how long they scrub. Three of the 16 respondents correctly answered the question regarding the hospital's recommended policy regarding scrub time of 5 minutes. All stated they thought they scrubbed at least 2 minutes and all agreed that at least a 2-minute scrub should be done.
authors.affiliation: College of Medicine, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR 72205, USA.
authors.forename: Adnan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Khan
authors.forename: Sandra G
authors.initials: SG
authors.lastname: McLaren
authors.forename: Carl L
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Nelson
mesh_terms: D006235:Hand Disinfection / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D009985:Orthopedics; D013997:Time Factors