Table 2.

Recognised errors in donning and doffing based on literature review that need to be emphasised in training28–30 32–36

Donning errors	Doffing errors
Did not perform hand hygiene before entering the room	Did not use proper glove-in-glove technique for glove removal
Did not tie the gown at both the neck and waist	Did not remove gloves first
Selected a procedure mask instead of the N95 disposable respirator	Not doffing gloves inside out
Did not place mask straps properly	Contamination frequently occurred when the contaminated outside surface of gloves was touched with bare hands during removal.
Did not properly seal the mask to the face	The outer gloves were not the first doffing item when untying the outer shoe cover strings first.
Did not conduct a seal check	Gloves and/or masks were not placed in the trash hamper
Did not use eye protection	Removed potentially contaminated eye protection from the room
Glove cuff did not cover gown cuff.	Did not use the foot pedal, but instead touched the hamper lid with bare hand
Did not don equipment in the recommended sequence	Did not place all or part of the gown into the designated hamper
Gloves were not donned last as part of the donning sequence	Did not use proper mask removal technique
Unfamiliarity with PPE items	Touching the outer surface of a gown when rolling it up to reduce its volume after discard
Confusion about the wearing order of multilayered PPE items	Did not use wall-mounted hand sanitiser before exiting the room
Not tying backstrap of gown	Removed other potentially contaminated items from the room
	Did not perform hand hygiene after exiting the room
	Did not doff equipment in the recommended sequence, for example, doffing gloves first and touching other PPE with bare hands
	Touched unprotected areas of the body, which could have resulted in self-contamination
	Adjusted the mask in the room, breaking the seal and potentially resulting in self-contamination
	Touched surfaces in the room that were unnecessary, which could have resulted in greater contamination of the gloved hands
	Difficulty in locating the coverall zipper-slider and pulling it down with gloved hands
	Contacting contaminated PPE with bare hands during doffing
	Doffing the gown with flourish
	Doffing the gown from the front
	Not rolling up the gown before disposal
	Walking between clean and dirty areas of doffing space
	Not completing hand hygiene after each step