The effect of surgical preference card on the clinical self-efficacy of operating room students

Background & Aim: A wide range of clinical education of operating room students is done in the operating room. One of the problems in students' clinical education is the lack of appropriate learning tools in the operating room. The use of educational tools that improve students' performance affects students' self-efficacy in the operating room. So, the purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of the surgical preference card as an educational aid tool on the self-efficacy of the operating room students. Methods & Materials: This quasi-experimental study was carried out on 64 operating room students of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences at AL-Zahra Hospital in the year 2018. Participates were selected through convenience sampling and were divided into experimental (n=32) and control (n=32) groups. The students in the intervention group performed surgical care with using the surgical preference card. The data collection tool was a clinical self-efficacy questionnaire. Data were analyzed with SPSS-21 software using the independent-t, paired t-test, and chi-square test. Results: The findings of this study showed that there was no significant difference between the average self-efficacy score of the control group before and after the intervention (p>0.05). while the average self-efficacy score of the experimental group increased significantly after the intervention as compared with before the intervention (p <0.001). Conclusion: The surgical preference card as an educational aid tool improved the students' self-efficacy. Therefore, it is recommended to use this tool for the clinical education of other operating room students. © 2020, Tehran University of Medical Sciences. All rights reserved

Does plastic incise drape prevent recolonization of endogenous skin flora during lumbar spine procedures?

Background: The aim of this study was to compare the PID with bare skin (without PID) regarding bacterial recolonization and bacterial regrowth of the adjacent skin of surgical incision in lumbar spine surgery patients. Methods: This quasi-experimental study was conducted from February to May 2018 on 88 patients who were candidate for lumbar spine surgery. Patients were assigned to one of two groups, treatment (with PID) and control (without PID). Skin sampling (adjacent of surgical incision) for bacterial culture was done in two steps, immediately after surgical skin prep (IASSP) and immediately after surgical wound closure (IASWC) by researcher. Finally, samples were sent to the laboratory. Results: The mean total bacterial count of patient's skin in stage IASSP was not significantly different between treatment and control groups (0.34 vs 0.27, P = 0.68). However, mean total bacterial count in stage IASWC in treatment group was significantly higher than control group (2.2 vs 0.93, P = 0.03). The frequency distribution of S. aureus (P = 0.04) and S. epidermidis (P = 0.02) was significantly higher in treatment group compared with control group in stage IASWC. Conclusions: The results showed that using PID is unable to reduce recolonization and regrowth of bacteria on patients' skin adjacent to surgical wound in clean lumbar spine surgeries. However, making a definite decision about using or not using of PID requires further studies. © 2019 Wolters Kluwer Medknow Publications. All rights reserved