Investigating the Extent of Operating Room Personnel’s Compliance with the Principles of Using cautery Units and its Relationship with their Demographic Variables in University Hospitals Affiliated to Shiraz University of Medical Sciences

A cautery unit is one of the most widely used pieces of equipment in operating rooms. It has been used in surgeries for about a century and has a direct impact on the results of surgeries.  Operating room personnel’s compliance with the principles of using Cautery units increases patient safety and reduces workplace hazards. This cross-sectional, descriptive study was conducted in 5 large university hospitals in Shiraz. We observed the application of cautery units by operating room staff in 100 surgeries. We collected data using the checklist for evaluation of operating room personnel’s use of Cautery units. We analyzed the collected data using the descriptive statistics of the chi-square test and paired T-test at a significance level of 0.05 in SPSS v. 17 The average age of the nurses who took part in the study was 31.540±6.772 years. The mean and standard deviation of the operating room personnel’s compliance with the principles of using cautery units was found to be 18.330±2.666. The extent of operating room personnel’s compliance with the principles of using electrocautery units was medium. The existence of a positive and direct relationship between the personnel’s use of Cautery on the one hand and their employment status and education on the other can showed that the permanently employed personnel who had longer work experience and greater commitment and also highly educated personnel who had more scientific knowledge performed better at using Cautery units.