The effects of time reminders on surgical hand scrub performance and student satisfaction: A randomized controlled study

Abstract

Aim: The study's aim was to investigate how different reminders for surgical hand scrubbing duration affect healthcare students' scrubbing performance and satisfaction. Background: Every healthcare student planning to work in operating rooms needs to learn and practice the correct procedure for surgical hand scrubbing. Design: The study followed a randomized controlled design involving a pretest and posttest. Setting: The study was conducted in the Operating Room Services Program at a private university's Vocational School of Health Services in Turkey in April-May 2025. Method: Students were randomly assigned to a music group, alarm group, or control group, with 23 students each. The reminder in the music group was a song, the reminder in the alarm group was an alarm and routine practice was performed in the control group. Scrubbing performance was evaluated using a Surgical Hand Scrubbing Checklist. Results: No significant difference arose between the music, alarm and control groups in the initial performance (H = 1.139, p = .263) or final performance according to the Surgical Hand Scrubbing Checklist scores. However, the music group's scores were higher in the final performance than in the initial performance (t =-2.081, p = .049). Moreover, all students' satisfaction with the training protocol was similar (H = 1.139, p = .263). Conclusion: The music reminder demonstrated the potential to enhance long-term skill retention through combined temporal and mnemonic effects. The results also confirm that simulated skills laboratory training effectively prepares students for the essential procedure of surgical hand scrubbing while increasing satisfaction with the training protocol.