Introduction: Hand hygiene is the simplest, most effective and cheapest measure for removing microorganisms from the hands of healthcare workers. The recommended methods for achieving surgical hand hygiene are the surgical hand washing technique and the surgical hand disinfection technique. Although surgical hand hygiene is mandatory, there are no standard protocols in clinical guidelines on the methods and duration of hand hygiene alone. Purpose: The purpose of the thesis is to investigate preoperative hand hygiene, review guidelines and recommendations for it, and formulate preoperative hand hygiene recommendations for the clinical environment. Work methods: In the diploma thesis, we used a descriptive work method. Scientific and professional literature in the field of hand hygiene before surgery was reviewed. The literature search covered Slovenian, English and German language sources and was carried out from May to June 2024. Domestic and foreign literature was searched through the databases CINAHL, MEDLINE (PubMed), Scopus and with the help of remote access of the digital library of the University of Ljubljana (DiKUL ). In the final analysis, we included 5 sources that included guidelines for hand hygiene before surgery. Results: The results show that several different guidelines have been issued over the years. Recommendations for surgical hand washing and surgical hand disinfection can be found in all reviewed guidelines. Thus, even in the reviewed research, they do not indicate differences between the two methods, as long as the procedures are carried out correctly and they reduce the content of microorganisms on the hands of healthcare workers. During the review, we also formulated recommendations for the use of the guidelines in the clinical environment, as we believe that in this way we will be able to encourage providers to implement them better and more accurately, and will thereby contribute to the safer treatment of patients in Slovenian hospitals. Discussion and conclusion: We found that hand hygiene is the basis for aseptic work in the operating room, which requires precision and consistency. Based on the findings we obtained, we decided to create new guidelines, as we hope that with the help of a visual display, we will be able to achieve greater cooperation in the correct implementation of surgical hand hygiene.
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