Abstract
This literature review is used to reevaluate skin preparation procedures before immunization by health professionals, employing data bases such as Medline, MMWR, masters degree thesis and official sources like WHO, PAHO, the Ministry of Health of Brazil and the State Secretary of Health of São Paulo, among others. Documents and articles presented, in their contents, some of the following key words: skin prepare previous to immunization; skin assepsy previous to injections; skin assepsy for administration of parenteral vaccines; better practices in the control of infections in intradermical, subcutaneous and intramuscular injections. We have seen that little attention is given to teaching on skin preparation preceding injection administration. Despite the current utilization of alcohol 70% by the professionals, as well as by teachers and students on health issues we have not found evidences of any benefits from this procedure. Considering some of the previous papers published on skin preparation with alcohol 70%, we can see that: alcohol will have sterilizing properties when employed for 30 seconds and when allowed to dry for other additional 30 seconds. Therefore, the way it has been employed in the daily practice of immunization in basic health units, seems to be a dispensable procedure if the patient is clean and the professionals involved maintain adequate and indispensable hand-washing.
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Copyright (c) 2009 Marcia Monteiro Alves Fernandes, Clelia Maria Sarmento de Souza Aranda