The safety of a novel single-drape cover for sterile back tables in the operating room compared to the standard two-drape method: an experimental study

BACKGROUND: Covering the prepared sterile back tables (PSBTs) during periods of nonuse and during active surgeries may decrease contamination of sterile surgical instruments that have direct contact to surgical wound. The Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN) declared that an easy method for covering and removing the drape will ultimately be most effective (e.g. standard two-drape method). Hence, this study was designed to test the hypothesis that using a novel single-drape cover had more efficiency and safety in decreasing airborne bacteria-carrying particles (ABCPs) settling on the PSBTs during static and dynamic periods than the standard two-drape method. METHODS: This experimental study was conducted with using 918 agar plates to detect contamination of the PSBTs with ABCPs on two conditions (static and dynamic) at an academic medical center in Kashan, Iran, from September 25, 2021, to January 20, 2022. The contamination of PSBTs was evaluated by 6 agar settle plates (n = 918 in total) on each PSBT in static and dynamic operating room (OR) conditions. At each time-point, this set-up was repeated on two occasions else during data collection, establishing 81 PSBTs in total. Tested groups included the PSBTs covered with the standard two-drape method, the novel single-drape cover, or no cover. The plates were collected after 15, 30, 45, 60, 120, 180, 240 min and 24 h. The primary outcome measured was comparison of mean bioburden of ABCPs settling on covered PSBTs on two conditions by using agar settle plates. The secondary outcomes measured were to determine the role of covering in decreasing contamination of PSBTs and the estimation of time-dependent surgical instrument contamination in the uncovered PSBTs on two conditions by using agar settle plates. RESULTS: Covering the PSBTs during static and dynamic OR conditions lead to a significantly decreased bioburden of ABCPs on them (P < 0.05). No differences were seen between the standard two-drape method and the novel single-drape cover (P > 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: We found that there is no preference for using the novel single-drape cover than the standard two-drape method. Our results showed a significant decrease in bioburden of ABCPs on the PSBTs when those were covered during static and dynamic OR conditions, indicating the efficiency for covering the PSBTs during periods of nonuse and during active surgery.