What are the 6 steps of surgical dressing changes

Surgical dressing change process includes instrument preparation, patient preparation, formal operation, this process can be divided into six steps. 1. Preparation before dressing change: After cleaning up the environment around the operating table, take two sterile dressing change bowls, sterilized cotton balls, forceps, scissors, gauze and sterile dressings. 2. Patient preparation: inform the patient of the purpose of this dressing change, and then slowly remove the surface dressing of the patient’s wound by hand. 3. Observation of wound healing: Holding sterile forceps or toothed forceps in the right hand, slowly open the inner dressing and observe whether there is any redness, swelling, hardness, pus, or rupture at the wound opening. 4. Initial disinfection: Pick up a sterilized cotton ball with the forceps in the left hand and move it alternately into the forceps in the right hand to disinfect the patient’s wound for the first time. If there is pus in the patient’s wound, the pus should be gently squeezed and discharged. 5. Re-sterilization: Use the right-hand forceps to pick up the sterilized cotton ball, and re-sterilize the patient’s wound with the same procedure as the initial sterilization. 6. End dressing change: After the two disinfections, gently dry the wound with a dry clean gauze, then use a sterile dressing or gauze to cover the wound and bandage it securely. Surgical dressing change should be carried out under the operation of professional doctors, and patients should not do it by themselves, so as to avoid causing infection and affecting wound healing.