Maintaining a high level of cleanliness and hygiene during the perioperative period is important to protect patients from microorganisms that can cause SSI.

Surgical site infections can be caused by endogenous microorganisms present on the patient's skin or mucous membranes, or by exogenous microorganisms from the external environment, surgical personnel, surgical instruments or other materials. One reason for surgical personnel to wear gowns and caps is to reduce patient exposure to microorganisms shed from the skin and hair.

Also, AORN recommends that all operating room personnel wear disposable, fluffy wrap-around caps. The reason: Through research, hair is a potential vehicle for bacterial transmission, and it can carry a variety of bacteria, including but not limited to staphylococci, streptococci and bacilli. By comparing to the forehead or eyebrows, more bacteria can be found in the surgical staff's ears. Therefore it is important to cover the head, hair, ears and facial hair.

In the clinic, the most worn and used are the three caps mentioned above.
A: Disposable fluffy wrap-around hats, with all hair and ears wrapped in
B: disposable skull cap without brim type cap. C: cloth without brim type cap
B and C, with exposed ears and a small amount of hair showing on the sides and bottom.

There is no significant difference between disposable fluffy surgical caps and disposable brimless caps in terms of blocking particle and bacterial contamination.
In contrast, air testing revealed that the fluffy surgical caps shed more microorganisms in the sterile area compared to the rimless caps.
The disposable floppy surgical caps were more severe in terms of 0.5 mm and 1.0 mm particle shedding and microbial shedding than the cloth rimless caps.
Cloth rimless caps had lower permeability, lower average and maximum pore size, and similar penetration to disposable rimless caps. These data may indicate that cloth rimless caps are superior to disposable fluffy caps.