Wearing gloves in the hospital
Wearing gloves in the hospital helps prevent the spread of germs. This helps protect both patients and health care workers from infection.
When to Wear Gloves
Gloves create a barrier between germs and your hands. They help keep your hands clean and lessen your chance of getting germs that can make you sick.
Wear gloves every time you will be touching blood, body fluids, body tissues, mucous membranes, or broken skin. Even if a patient seems healthy and has no signs of any germs, you should still wear gloves for this sort of contact.
Gloves are called personal protective equipment (PPE). Other types of PPE are gowns, masks, and shoe and head covers.
Choose the Right Gloves
Containers of disposable gloves should be available in any room or area where patient care takes place.
They come in different sizes, so make sure you choose the right size for a good fit.
- If the gloves are too big, it is hard to hold onto objects and easier for germs to get inside your gloves.
- Gloves that are too small are more likely to rip.
Some cleaning and care procedures require sterile or surgical gloves.Sterile means "free from germs."These gloves come in numbered sizes (5.5 - 9). You will need to know your size ahead of time.
If you will be handling chemicals, check the material safety data sheet to see what kind of glove you will need.
Do not use oil-based hand creams or lotions unless they are approved for use with latex gloves.
If you have a latex allergy, use non-latex gloves and avoid contact with other products that contain latex.
Removing Gloves
When you take the gloves off, make sure the outside of the gloves does not touch your bare hands. Follow these steps:
- Grab the top of your right glove with your left hand.
- Pull toward your fingertips. The glove will turn inside out.
- Hold onto the empty glove with your left hand.
- Put 2 right-hand fingers in the top of your left glove.
- Pull toward your fingertips until you have pulled the glove inside out and off your hand. The right glove will be inside the left glove now.
- Throw the gloves away in an approved waste container.
Always use new gloves for each patient, and wash your hands between patients to avoid passing germs.
References
Infection control. In: Mills JE, ed. Nursing Procedures. 5th ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; 2009:chap 2.
Update Date: 2/26/2012
Updated by: David C. Dugdale, III, MD, Professor of Medicine, Division of General Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Washington School of Medicine. Also reviewed by David Zieve, MD, MHA, Medical Director, A.D.A.M. Health Solutions, Ebix, Inc.
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