Infection Prevention & SafetyQuestion 96 of 100
A technician receives a tray from a patient with no known infection and no isolation precautions. What principle of standard precautions applies?
a.Precautions are applied only when a patient is known to have a bloodborne infection
b.All blood, body fluids, secretions, excretions except sweat, nonintact skin, and mucous membranes are treated as potentially infectious regardless of the patient's known status
c.Precautions apply only to items arriving from isolation rooms
d.Precautions apply only to sharp instruments
Explanation
Standard precautions assume that infectious status is often unknown at the time of contact, so the same protective practices apply to every patient and every contaminated item. This is why all instruments arriving in decontamination are handled as if infectious, whatever the source. Restricting precautions to known infections, isolation cases, or sharps leaves the largest share of undiagnosed exposures unprotected.
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