Does the use of surgical face masks reduce postoperative infections in traumatic wounds sutured outside hospital? A randomized study at a Norwegian casualty center

Abstract

Objective

To investigate if wearing surgical face mask by doctors and nurses during suturing of traumatic wounds has any impact on postoperative infection rate.

Design

Randomized controlled study with masked or unmasked health personnel groups.

Setting

A Norwegian Minor Injury Department.

Subjects

Adult patients with traumatic wounds sutured at the clinic between 7 October 2019 and 28 May 2020.

Main outcome measures

Postoperative infections of sutured wounds.

Results

One hundred and sixty-five patients with 176 wounds were included in the study. Nine out of 88 wounds (10.2%) in the masked group and 11 out of 88 wounds in the unmasked group (12.5%) had a wound infection.

Conclusions

Despite a higher percentage of postoperative infections in the unmasked than in the masked group (12.5% versus 10.2%), the difference was not statistically significant (p = .6). This might imply that the use of facemasks during suture of traumatic wounds in an outpatient setting does not significantly reduce the number of infections. However, due to the covid pandemic, the study had to be prematurely stopped before the planned number of participants had been recruited (n = 594). This increases the risk of type II error.

Key points

• Few studies from hospital setting have found significant difference in postoperative wound infections if surgical face masks were worn or not during surgery.

• High quality studies about face masks and wound infections from primary care are lacking.

• This randomized study at a minor injury department outside hospital found no significant difference in frequency of postoperative wound infection if health personnel had worn surgical face masks or not while suturing traumatic wounds.

Keywords:

• Facemask
• wound infection
• traumatic laceration
• wound sutures
• primary health care
• accident and emergency department
• minor injury department

Acknowledgements

We thank MD PhD Teresa Osland for participating in planning the study with us, Head Nurse Linda Eikefet Revheim and nurse Juliane Medås for their engagement in the conduction of the study, and all nurses and doctors at the MID for collecting data to the study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.