Does Gloved Medical Personnel Scratch Less Often?

February 9, 2009 updated by: Medical University Innsbruck

Unconscious touching of a person's own head or neck (for example by scratching) is a frequently observed and completely normal physiological movement pattern in humans, which when done by medical personnel attending a patient poses a high risk of unconscious self-contamination, even of an already disinfected hand, and of subsequent contamination of the patient. However, as compared to an ungloved hand, a gloved hand is felt to be "foreign," which could reduce the frequency of self-contact and thus the contamination rate.

Wearing protective gloves is highly recommended in medical practice. The purpose of this study is to explore how wearing, or not wearing, protective gloves affects

  • the frequency of unconscious self-contact
  • contamination of the gloved/ungloved hand

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Observational

Enrollment (Anticipated)

40

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • Austria
      • Innsbruck, Austria, 6020
        • University Hospital

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

18 years to 30 years (Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Medical students working in a simulated OR environment

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Medical University Innsbruck

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Arnulf Benzer, MD, MUI Innsbruck

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

January 1, 2007

Study Completion (Actual)

December 1, 2007

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

January 19, 2007

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

January 19, 2007

First Posted (Estimate)

January 22, 2007

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Estimate)

February 10, 2009

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

February 9, 2009

Last Verified

February 1, 2009

More Information

Terms related to this study

Other Study ID Numbers

  • A_B_19_01_2007

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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