EASE OF DONNING COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE LATEX EXAMINATION GLOVES

There are a wide variety of latex examination gloves now available for use by health care providers. A prospective randomized trial was comp leted to quantify the forces required to don a sample of seven cornsta rch-lubricated gloves and 13 powder-free latex examination gloves. The data collected was analyzed by a 20 x 2 general factorial ANOVA, as w ell as two 1-way ANOVAs using a least significance difference post hoc test. Some powder-free gloves can be easily donned with dry or wet ha nds without tearing with forces comparable to those encountered with p owdered gloves. With the advent of these powder-free examination glove s, powdered gloves can now be abandoned, protecting health professiona ls and patients from the dangers of absorbable dusting powders. Despit e the dangers of the absorbable dusting powders and the Food and Drug Administration's requirement for labeling examination glove boxes, som e manufacturers of powdered examination gloves do not appropriately la bel their boxes with a warning to the health professional and patient of the presence of powder. (C) 1998 John Wiley gr Sons, Inc.