Comparative Study of the Efficacy of Brushless Surgical Hand Preparation Techniques Using Antiseptic Soap, Alcohol and Non-medicated Soap

Background & Objectives: Preoperative hand preparation with a brush-less method is almost a common practice. The aim of this study was to compare the efficacy of brush-less preoperative hand preparation using alcohol to antiseptic soap, and non-medicated soap in eliminating germs by standard proper pre-operative hand preparation.
Methods: Twenty volunteers tried three different ways of surgical hand preparation with antiseptic soap, alcohol, and non-medicated soap-based preoperative hand preparation.
Results: There was no positive bacterial growth sample in the alcohol-based scrubbing group while it was 2% with positive bacterial growth in the antimicrobial soap and 55% with positive bacterial growth in the non-medicated soap group.
Conclusion: The alcohol-based pre-operative hand preparation was significantly more efficient than both the antimicrobial soap and the non-medicated soap.