Top Considerations for Lab Glove Selection: Protection, Precision and Comfort
Gloves are one of the most critical elements of personal protective equipment (PPE) in a lab environment. Not only do they protect scientists and researchers from known and unknown risks, they also protect the scientific process.
Consider These Statistics
- Wearing gloves has been proven to reduce the relative risk of injury by 60 percent
- 30 percent of people who experienced a hand injury were wearing the wrong type of glove
- The indirect costs of an injury can be 4-10 times the amount of direct medical costs
- The average time off work for a hand injury is six days
This makes the task of selecting the correct glove both important and challenging. According to an article in Health & Safety International, “even small deficiencies in glove design may reduce grip, strength and manual dexterity”. The glove must also be well-suited for the intended purpose without compromising protection, precision or comfort.
For example, thicker gloves may provide the right level of chemical protection, but they can reduce dexterity and impact the user’s ability to perform a specific task. As a result, scientists may select thinner alternatives, which provide adequate dexterity but compromise protection or even require more frequent replacements. Worse still, they may choose to not wear gloves at all, risking injury or chemical exposure.
Effective glove selection respects the balance between protection, precision, and comfort while being suitable for the end-use application. These three attributes are critical, but are challenging to realise through a single hand protection solution.
Glove Selection Criteria
On first inspection, many choosers of hand protection solutions might find it difficult to distinguish between the myriad of options available. Not all gloves can protect the integrity of your science and the safety of your scientists.
"Appearances can be deceiving, which makes it crucial to perform an adequate risk assessment prior to selecting the desired solution.
What are the Criteria?
Protection
Laboratory workers are regularly exposed to a range of chemical agents. According to an international safety study, 21 percent of respondents indicated that they had been injured on more than one occasion in the lab. Furthermore, in a laboratory PPE poll, 85 percent of respondents said that compliance – getting people to protect themselves from exposure to chemicals or bloodborne pathogens – was their biggest challenge. This highlights the important role protection plays in glove selection. However protection is not one-size-fits-all. You also need to determine the level of protection required based on the intended use. Here are some questions to ask:
- Is protection against a wide range of lab chemicals required, including cytotoxic drugs?
- Do the gloves need to offer chemical splash protection or full immersion protection?
- Are they manufactured using materials that reduce the risk of allergic reaction?
- Are tasks requiring high levels of durability performed – do they protect against injuries such as punctures and lacerations from broken glassware?
If the answer to all of these questions is “no,” continue your search. If the answer to all is “yes,” you can check the protection box. Now, it’s time to move on to the other two key considerations.
Precision
Good ergonomics are crucial for glove performance and meeting user needs. Routine laboratory procedures such as pipetting, working with microscopes, operating microtomes, and using cell counters and video display terminals can put researchers at risk for repetitive motion injuries. These injuries develop over time and occur when muscles and joints are stressed, tendons are inflamed, and nerves are pinched and blood flow restricted. That’s why it’s essential to select gloves with precision characteristics that reduce the risk of muscle fatigue and promote good wet and dry grip. For a lab environment, look for gloves that are thin yet protective and which offer tactile sensitivity and enhanced dexterity through features such as textured fingertips.
Comfort
According to an article in Health & Safety International, glove discomfort has been linked to reduced compliance and increased risk of injury. The article further states that “uncomfortable glove materials may reduce blood circulation, cause numbness, limit finger and hand motion, cause muscle fatigue and reduce work performance.” Therefore, it becomes essential to consider a glove solution that applies ergonomic principles during the design stage, based on the needs and characteristics of the glove’s intended users. One method to ensure this is to select gloves that offer certified ergonomic comfort.
Gloves and Sustainability
Due to their prevalence in labs and the fact that workers can go through several pairs in the course of a day, gloves are a big contributor to a lab’s solid waste stream. For example, if a lab worker changes their gloves three times per day, that equates to 30 gloves per week or over 1,500 gloves per person, per year. If a worker is double-gloving that amount is even higher – over 30 lb. of gloves per worker, per year – an amount of waste that can really add up.
An audit conducted by the University of Washington found that 22 percent of its research waste consisted of nitrile gloves. A University of California Santa Cruz laboratory waste assessment found that nitrile gloves made up a majority of laboratory waste destined for landfill.
There are solutions to help address this. Look for a manufacturer-led, auditable program that diverts used gloves from landfill through recycling. RightCycle from Kimberly-Clark Professional™ is one such programme. Since 2011, it has enabled large global corporations, research facilities, universities, nonprofits, and a range of businesses to collect their used PPE and have them turned into new consumer goods. To date, the programme has reclaimed more than 1,670 metric tons of waste from landfill.
For more information about choosing hand protection that checks all the boxes for precision, protection, comfort, and sustainability, visit the Fisher Scientific channel Sustainability Program. from Fisher Scientific.
Kristin Barrett is EMEA Scientific Marketing Manager with the Kimberly-Clark Professional™ Global Scientific Business.
Content provided by:
