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Nurses’ levels of knowledge and practice regarding preoperative hair removal and prevention of surgical site infection

Open Access
|Sep 2025

Abstract

Objective

To evaluate nurses’ levels of knowledge and practice regarding preoperative hair removal and prevention of surgical site infection (SSI).

Methods

The descriptive and cross-sectional research was conducted between February 2023 and May 2023 in a public hospital in northern Turkey with 123 nurses who agreed to participate in the study.

Results

The results showed that 64.2% of the nurses thought that preoperative hair removal should be done by shaving with a razor, 74% thought that hair removal should be performed the night before the operation, and 70.7% thought that the patient/patient’s relative should perform preoperative hair removal.

Conclusions

This study found that nurses’ levels of knowledge and practice regarding preoperative hair removal and prevention of SSI were not at the desired level. Following current resources and improving their levels of knowledge and practices are considered to be important for nurses.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/fon-2025-0039 | Journal eISSN: 2544-8994 | Journal ISSN: 2097-5368
Language: English
Page range: 355 - 363
Submitted on: Nov 13, 2024
Accepted on: Dec 18, 2024
Published on: Sep 25, 2025
Published by: Shanxi Medical Periodical Press
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
Publication frequency: 4 issues per year

© 2025 Hatice Hilal Cangi Akcan, Senay Karadag Arli, published by Shanxi Medical Periodical Press
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.