Guideline for surgical smoke safety

Assessment of surgical smoke knowledge and exposure symptoms of the operating room team: a Turkish sample

BACKGROUNDS

The aim of this study was to assess the level of knowledge of operating room (OR) staff about surgical smoke and to examine its negative effects on health.

METHODS

A descriptive and cross-sectional design was used. The study population consisted of the health care team working in the OR of a university and a state hospital. The sample consisted of 113 participants who met the inclusion criteria and agreed to participate in the study. Data were collected using a data collection form based on the literature. A P-value of >0.05 was considered statistically significant.

RESULTS

The mean age of the participants was 36.10 ± 8.13 years. 61.9% of the participants had not received training on surgical smoke. It was determined that 85% of the participants were bothered by surgical smoke, always experiencing discomfort from the odour (39.9%), occasionally pain or burning in the throat (33.6%), and rarely vision impairment (31.9%) due to exposure to surgical smoke.

CONCLUSIONS

The level of knowledge of the healthcare team working in the OR about the risks of surgical smoke and prevention measures is inadequate. Exposure to surgical smoke has been linked to adverse effects such as eye irritation, headaches, and respiratory symptoms.

Factors Associated with Surgical Smoke Self-Protection Behavior of Operating Room Nurses

Surgical smoke has been proven to be harmful and carcinogenic to humans as well as increasing the risk of acquiring infectious diseases. The operating room nurses' willingness to use protective equipment against surgical smoke was low. The factors associated with personal protective behavior in the operating room against surgical smoke were sparsely explored. The purpose of this study is to determine factors associated with surgical smoke self-protection behavior of the operating room nurses. This was a descriptive correlational study using a convenience sample from a medical center in northern Taiwan. The self-designed questionnaires included personal characteristics and perceived attributes. The data were analyzed by descriptive and linear regression. Attendance at in-service education with regard to surgical smoke, the attitude to surgical smoke, and surgical smoke self-protection barriers were significant factors found in multivariate linear regression after controlling the covariates. The overall model was significant and accounted for 14.2% of variances. In summary, attending in-service education, attitude and barriers in executing self-protective behaviors were significant factors. It is important to promote operating room nurses' health through providing correct surgical smoke knowledge, self-protection strategies to improve attitudes toward surgical smoke, improving the hospital's environment by adding surgical smoke evacuation equipment, and standardizing the operating procedures.