Surgical Hand Antisepsis: Commitment, Tools, Technologies, and Prospects for Improvement (based on online testing)

Relevance . Surgical hand antisepsis is one of the components of the system for preventing infections in the surgical area (SSI). It is believed that modern surgical antiseptics allow for the complete removal of transient and partially resident microflora from the skin of the hands with minimal negative impact on the health of employees involved in surgical interventions. In the Russian Federation, there is a unified technology for surgical hand antisepsis, which is scientifically and methodologically substantiated and regulated by current sanitary rules. At the same time, adherence to the standard procedure of surgical hand antisepsis by healthcare workers (HW) remains unknown, and the negative impact of the antiseptics used on the skin of the hands and the health of employees has been practically not studied in recent years. Aim . To analyze the implementation of a standard surgical hand antisepsis procedure by medical workers involved in surgical interventions and the impact of modern antiseptics on their well-being. Materials and methods . Analyzed 1,335 electronic questionnaires, including information covering various aspects of surgical hand antisepsis from 33 medical organizations (MO) of 12 subjects of the Russian Federation. The recipes for hygiene products and antiseptics were specified in the instructions for drugs from thematic information and reference systems or official websites of manufacturers (143 units). The work used epidemiological (descriptive-evaluative and analytical), sociological and statistical research methods. Conclusions . The main violations of the technology of surgical hand antisepsis in the Ministry of Defense were: the use of liquid soap with disinfectant additives, non-sterile wipes for drying hands after washing, failure to comply with the decontamination time at certain stages of the technology, the use of water-based antiseptics, and the lack of hand care products for employees by the administration. All of the above are violations of the technology of surgical hand antisepsis approved at the legislative level. A negative impact on the health of MR of a number of detergents and antiseptics, as well as individual violations in the technology of the procedure, was established. An assessment was made of the commitment to surgical antisepsis of different categories of employees, and proposals were formulated to improve hand antisepsis for practical healthcare.