INVESTIGATION OF SURGICAL HAND WASHING PRACTICES OF OPERATING ROOM NURSES

Objectives: although surgical hand washing is an imperative procedure in operating room, there is no a standard surgical hand washing technique applied universally. the aim of this study was to determine the surgical hand washing practices of operating room nurses. methods: the study was performed during the hand washing course of turkish surgical and operating room nursing congress, 04- 08 september gaziantep, turkey. the sample was consisted of 96 operating room nurses from 18 city and 35 different hospitals. all the nurses (96) attended the session completed the questionnaire. the data were collected using a questionnaire consists of 6 open-ended and 19 multi-choices totally 25 questions and were presented number and percentage using spss 11.0. results: of the nurses 45.8 % stated that they had not received in-service education related to surgical hand washing, 53.1 % stated that they used brush for hand washing, 69.7% stated that they used povidone-iodine for hand washing and 95.8% stated that the duration of hand washing were 2-6 minutes. conclusion: it has been determined that although surgical hand washing practices are in accordance with literature, there are some differences individual and organizational about antiseptic, washing method and time.