Personal protective equipment: donning and doffing

Donning

Perform hand hygiene first, then:

1. Gown — fasten at the neck and waist, back fully closed.
2. Mask or respirator — secure ties or elastic; fit the nosepiece; seal-check a respirator.
3. Eye protection — goggles or face shield, positioned over the eyes.
4. Gloves — pulled over the cuff of the gown so no wrist shows.

Doffing

1. Gloves — the dirtiest item, removed first.
2. Eye protection — handled by the headband or earpieces, never the front.
3. Gown — unfasten, peel away from neck and shoulders, roll the contaminated side inward.
4. Mask or respirator — handled by the ties or elastic only, never the front.

Perform hand hygiene immediately after, and again at any point during the sequence where your hands become contaminated.

Where it happens

Gloves, eye protection, and gown come off inside the room or at the doorway. The mask or respirator comes off after you have left the room and the door is closed. Location is a scored element on ordered-response items, so learn the steps with their addresses attached.

The mirror, with one exception

Doffing is not a clean reversal of donning. A naive reversal would take the mask off before the gown. The real sequence keeps the gown on until step three and takes the mask last, because the room air is contaminated until you are out of it. Learn it as a rule, not as a derivation.

Contamination map

Treat as dirty: the outside of the gloves, the front and sleeves of the gown, and the outer surface of the mask. Everything else is your handhold.

Margin notedirtiest thing comes off first, every time.

Watch outa respirator removed inside an airborne room defeats the entire sequence.

Takeawaydonning protects the nurse going in, doffing protects everyone else coming out.

Fit testing, seal checks, and respirator selection → BOOK 04 · P6.