Aseptic Technique, Compounding, and Infection Control
What the exam tests
This domain covers clean preparation, hand hygiene, personal protective equipment, sterile compounding, disinfection, sharps safety, and beyond-use dating. Questions often test the sequence of aseptic manipulation and what breaks sterility.
Core rules
- Perform hand hygiene before preparation. Wear appropriate gloves, gown, mask, and eye protection according to risk.
- Clean the work surface and allow disinfectant contact time. In a laminar-airflow cabinet, organise work so that airflow is not blocked and sterile items remain in the clean zone.
- Swab vial stoppers and ampoule necks with an approved disinfectant and let them dry before piercing. Do not touch sterile needles, hubs, or the inside of caps.
- Aseptic compounding must follow validated procedures and assigned beyond-use dates. Label with preparation date, expiry, storage, and patient identifiers.
- Never recap a contaminated needle by hand; use a sharps container immediately. Spills are managed with the facility’s spill kit and reported.
Worked example
To reconstitute a powder vial: perform hand hygiene, don PPE, disinfect the stopper, draw the stated diluent with a sterile syringe, inject slowly, and allow dissolution without vigorous shaking if the label says so. Swab again before withdrawing the dose. Label the vial with time, diluent, and beyond-use date. Do not leave the needle in the stopper for later use.
Traps that cost marks
Swabbing and immediately piercing before the disinfectant dries; touching sterile parts; working outside the cabinet’s clean zone; using an unlabelled syringe; and recapping a needle by hand.