Infection control and disinfection, the biggest topic on the exam

Look at how much of each written exam this one topic carries.

Half of the California nail exam. No other topic comes close in any license or either state. If you get one thing right in your preparation, make it this.

Three words that are not the same thing

Most wrong answers in this topic come from treating cleaning, disinfecting and sterilizing as three strengths of the same action. They are three different processes with three different purposes and three different places where they apply.

Cleaning removes visible dirt, oil and debris. Soap, water, a brush. It kills nothing reliably. It is what you do before you disinfect, and skipping it makes the disinfection fail, because a disinfectant cannot reach a surface under a film of product.

Disinfecting kills most pathogens on a hard, non-porous surface. It needs a product registered with the Environmental Protection Agency, used at the dilution the label states, for the full contact time the label states. This is where exam questions live.

Sterilizing destroys all life, including spores, and in practice means an autoclave. Salons rarely sterilize. Know what it means and know that an autoclave is the method.

Contact time is the trap

A disinfectant works for the number of minutes its own label states, fully wet, in full immersion where immersion is the method. Wiping a surface and moving on is not disinfection.

Expect a question built on exactly this. You will be given a scenario where someone sprays and wipes immediately, and the correct answer will be about the time on the label.

Know the product families by what they kill. A disinfectant for salon implements has to be bactericidal, virucidal and fungicidal. Hospital grade or tuberculocidal products appear where the risk is higher. Quaternary ammonium compounds, which everyone calls quats, and sodium hypochlorite, which is household bleach, show up by name.

Porous, non-porous, single use

A hard non-porous item, such as metal shears or a glass bowl, can be cleaned and disinfected and used again.

A porous item cannot be disinfected to a standard anyone trusts. Files, buffers, wooden sticks, cotton, and anything that absorbs. Those are single use. Used once, thrown away, in front of the client.

This distinction is a reliable source of questions in every license, and in the nail exam it is a large share of them.

The blood spill procedure

Learn this as a sequence, because that is how it is asked.

1. Stop the service.
2. Put on gloves.
3. Stop the bleeding and cover the wound with an adhesive bandage or dressing.
4. Clean and disinfect the work surfaces and any tool that was touched.
5. Throw away contaminated single use items in a sealed bag, and sharps in a sharps container.
6. Remove the gloves, wash your hands and record the incident where your state requires it.

Behind this take the universal precautions and the bloodborne pathogen rules. Treat every client's blood as infectious. Know hepatitis B and HIV as bloodborne, and know that they are not spread by the surfaces you disinfect properly.

The diseases and disorders you must not work on

A large part of consultation questions are really infection control questions. You are shown a client and asked what to do. The three answers are serve, refer to a physician, or refuse the service today.

Know the common ones by sight and name. Tinea, which is ringworm, and pediculosis, which is head lice, are infectious and the client is referred. Dandruff is not infectious. Onycholysis, where the nail plate lifts from the bed, is not infectious but it is not something you work over. An inflamed, pus-filled or open area means no service.

How to practice this topic

Do not reread the chapter. Answer questions until you stop missing them, and read the explanation for every one you guessed. Infection control questions are built around a specific rule, and a specific rule is either known or not.

Twenty questions a day on this topic alone, for a week, is a bigger score change than a month spent evenly across the outline.