Wear gloves during assessment?

Nurses General Nursing

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I am a new nursing student who started clinicals pretty recently. Im wondering.. Do you wear gloves when taking vitals & during a full-body assessment? I know to follow what the instructor says to do.. My instructor doesn't enforce that we wear gloves during assessments.. But would it be a good idea to do it anyway? I had another instructor before who said she wears gloves anytime she has pt interaction. Just wondering what's the norm & what's best health-wise.

I wear gloves more often than not, especially when I'm taking that first look under the sheets.

^^^THIS! I pretty much always were gloves, as I stated earlier. Thinking back, in an inpatient setting the first thing I did was my initial assessment for the day, which included VS. After seeing everything I was dealing with was okay, then I wouldn't worry about things that would not be an issue, like VS or transfers. However, if I'm helping with a transfer on a patient I haven't personally assessed, I use gloves. Too many times have I seen co workers not and then pull back with blood or other oozing material from a wound where the dressing leaked that was not mentioned in report. It only takes one time. Better safe than sorry. Also, the ER would send patients out to the floor stating that their skin was clear only to find them covered in scabies during the admit assessment. One of the patients was from their own home too so it isn't always from a nursing home or homeless population as some people believe.

Specializes in Transitional Nursing.

Can't speak for the assessment, but I never wear gloves for vital signs.

I was told the same thing about wearing PPE for Contact Precautions.....you never know what will happen while you are in the room.

Specializes in Long Term Acute Care, TCU.

This is sad. It reminds me of when MRSA and VRE first started becoming a big problem. Nurses that do not wear gloves for all patient contact are putting the patient at risk. It is irresponsible and risky. Your fingernails are harbingers of death in the indiscriminate way that they harbor germs and transport them from one patient to another.

I think patients are more at risk from nurses and other health professions not washing their hands than them not wearing gloves. I also hope that the folks gloving up for every patient interaction are practicing good hand hygiene before they put the gloves on and after they take them off.

Honestly, as has been said by others, unless you're coming in contact with a patient's bodily fluids, they're on contact precautions, have oozing wounds, etc. I really don't see the need to glove up every time. But to each his or her own.

Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
Generally I don't wear glove for VS. For an assesment I normally will. My hands are a mess from the constant hand washing and an allergy to the gloves and add in a case of eczema. My hands are split open, raw and itchy as all hell. I am doing it both for me (open areas all over my hands and at times they crack bad enough that there can be some scant bleeding and ) as well as my patients.

Just want to say, as having had this in the past, it is hell. Sometimes even plain water can turn your hands itchy, blistery, bright red. Most lotion I could forget about. I commend you for dealing with it and I am sure once you explain it your patients understand. Hope you have found a good dermatologist, lucky I had worked with one and she helped me get things calmed down. OK back to topic!

This is sad. It reminds me of when MRSA and VRE first started becoming a big problem. Nurses that do not wear gloves for all patient contact are putting the patient at risk. It is irresponsible and risky. Your fingernails are harbingers of death in the indiscriminate way that they harbor germs and transport them from one patient to another.

I think calling our fingernails "harbingers of death" is melodramatic. It's not as though we're grooming ebola-infected monkeys between patient rooms. Proper and consistent hand hygiene and observing standard precautions is enough.

Gloving up to check a pulse on a clean, ambulatory, non-iso patient is borderline OCD crazy-pants.

Specializes in Hospice Nursing.

And if germs can be transmitted through intact skin (during VS or basic assessment), we have a bigger problem, folks!!

When I was working at the bedside, I wore gloves all the time. I learned this lesson while I was still a nursing student (where we learn many nursing life-long lessons :) )I was simply changing out linens for a patient with no gloves, and he mentioned to me (too late) that there might be some snot in the linens. I found out later on that shift that his swab came back positive for MRSA. Of course I practiced hand hygiene and nothing ever came of it, but ever since then, I gloved up for everything. I'm in FNP school now, and I'm still trying to get used to not using gloves for little everything. I have to remind myself that an inpatient vs outpatient population may not always require the same level of caution. I had a preceptor (MD) pull out impacted cerumen out of a patient with his bare hand. Personally, I'll never be ok with that barehanded. I'm still struggling to find my happy medium. My gut wants gloves on all the time.

This is sad. It reminds me of when MRSA and VRE first started becoming a big problem. Nurses that do not wear gloves for all patient contact are putting the patient at risk. It is irresponsible and risky. Your fingernails are harbingers of death in the indiscriminate way that they harbor germs and transport them from one patient to another.

It is sad to me when educated professionals do not understand the chain of infection or the proven effectiveness of proper hand hygiene in interrupting the spread of infection.

Specializes in hospice.

Gloving up to check a pulse on a clean, ambulatory, non-iso patient is borderline OCD crazy-pants.

:beer::beer: Here's your prize for best comment yet.

I agree. Our patients are people and it's demeaning to glove up for every tiny, simple interaction.

ETA: regarding protection for the pt. Of course if they're neutropenic, or if I'm floating to the burn unit, gloves are part of the required PPE. But otherwise, I wash my own hands before touching them, after "dirty" procedures, and after touching my own face. I'm very conscious of pt safety. :yes:

'Like', about a thousand times 'LIKE'! NOT gloving constantly does not equal disregard for patient's safety, it's about the OPPOSITE of "inconsiderate", as I consider their self-image and dignity to be quite valuable. Certainly we were all taught to wash our hands when exiting/entering a patient's room, yes?

I can imagine that if a nurse came at me with gloves just to take my vitals, I'd be pretty put-off by that. Gloving "just because" makes the patient feel they are too dirty to touch, and that is wrong IMHO.

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