Personal Protective Equipment In Health Care

Personal protective equipment or standard precautions plays a major role in the healthcare industry today. Personal Protective Equipment protects healthcare professionals from hazardous materials that can harm or produce any type of injury. Highly infectious disease produced by the virus, bacteria, and fungi could be easily spread by contact or body fluids, some of this infectious could also cause the death and increases the rate of nosocomial infections among healthcare providers and patients. The most common Nosocomial infectious or Hospital-acquired illnesses are bloodstream infections, genitourinary infections and surgical wound infectious so the use of personal protective equipment, aseptic techniques, and handwashing practice are essential
The literature review recognized the importance of using PPE to fight against infection and the information was obtained through online publications and consist of studies that were done by Randomized controlled trials (RCTs), cohort studies and case-control, quasi-experimental designs, comparative cohort, case-control studies, and cross-sectional studies. Four important aspects are highlighted in the research. The use of PPE among healthcare workers, Types of PPE, Comparison and contrast of PPE, and Effectiveness of
In the healthcare setting, PPE refers to gloves, gowns, goggles, masks and respirators, foot cover and face shields among others. When selecting PPE, healthcare professionals should know the type of exposure in order to select the correct PPE and according to the standard of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The standards of the CDC are classified into three categories ( Infection isolation, contact and airborne droplet), that take into account the type of exposure and precautions that healthcare professionals need to have in order to prevent infections so the amount and type of PPE used for universal precautions is proportional to the exposure that the health care professional will have with the patient. For instance, gloves are used every time that a healthcare provider is in contact with blood or bodily fluids. On the other hand, when bodily fluids splash or spray, health care professional must wear gowns, mask face shield, shoe covers and goggles. Indeed, personal protective equipment (PPE) in the healthcare field is considered one of the most important tools used to prevent infections against microorganism able to cause or transmit an infection. PPE usually works as a barrier between the healthcare workers and the agent. For instance, Verbeek, Ijaz, Mischke, Ruotsalainen, Mäkelä, Neuvonen & Mihalache,