Medical Textiles That Suit the User: Predicting Health Care Workers' Preference for Disposable Versus Reusable Surgical Gowns

Abstract

Administrators need to balance a variety of factors when purchasing products for a health care facility, including user preference. The objectives of this study were to determine which variables were significantly related to gown preference and then to create a multivariate model to determine the best set of variables for predicting user preference for reusable versus disposable gowns. When “no preference” was included in the multivariate analysis, both occupational group and years employed at the hospital where they currently worked were significant. When no preference data were removed, years employed at the current hospital became the only significant predictor of preference.

KEYWORDS:

• user preference
• medical textiles
• hospital purchasing

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank all the health care workers that participated in this study (NSF Grant CTS 0424716).

Notes

^a No additional variables met the .05 criterion for entry into the model.

^a No additional variables met the .05 criterion for entry into the model.