Determining the awareness of operating room staff about surgical smoke and radiation safety and examining their knowledge levels

INTRODUCTİON AND OBJECTİVE: This research was carried out to determine the health problems caused by surgical smoke and radiation that the operating room staff are exposed and to examine the knowledge levels of the employees on these issues. MATERIAL AND METHOD: This descriptive study was conducted with 202 personnel working in the operating room units of two different hospitals in Ankara between March and July 2021. The data were collected by face to face interview technique with "Individual Identification Form", "Surgical Smoke Information Form", "Radiation Safety Information Form" and "Radiation Safety Employee Awareness Form". In the analysis of the data within the scope of the research, a two factor chi-square analysis was performed along with frequency and percentage distributions. Monte Carlo p value was used in cases where the observed frequency of some variables was less than 5 in the chi-square analysis. Analyzes were performed in SPSS 22 (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) program. RESULTS: There are a total of 202 operating room employees in the study. It was determined that 61.4% were female, their mean age was 36.92±7.61, 32.2% were undergraduate graduates and 38.6% were midwives/nurses/health officers. Of the participants, 75.2% experienced symptoms related to surgical smoke, 80.2% radiation-related symptoms, and the most common surgical smoke-related symptoms; It was found that burning in the throat and headache/dizziness were experienced. It was found that the smoke evacuation devices in the operating rooms were not used frequently because they weakened the hand-eye coordination. A significant correlation was found between the education level of the operating room personnel and the use of high filtration mask (p<0,05) and thyroid protector (p<0,01). It was observed that the level of knowledge of the assistant personnel about "lead apron storage, intermittent imaging and dosimetry" was low. CONSLUSİON: It was observed that most of the operating room personnel needed training on surgical smoke and radiation safety, the precautions taken against the risks were not sufficient and the risks in the environment caused various symptoms in the employees.