Surgical scrubs are worn by a variety of medical professionals in various capacities all over the world. Called by the shortened name “scrubs” the one-time surgical only attire is now worn by men and wormen in every conceiveable medical capacity. Once only available in white, scrubs now come in a diverse array of color assortments, all of which carry implict meaning both for the medical professional and patient.
To assess some of the possible interpretations of various scrub colors, and determine preferred colors, a three pronged approach was used. A Make-See-Do model (a hands-on, participatory experience) was employed to triangulate the data. First, nineteen medical professionals were given an in-person questionnaire asking about their color preferences, scrub color preferences, clothing preferences, and experiences wearing surgical scrubs. The professional then used a MakeTool (a toolkit to build a model) to pick their preferred color(s) and cut of scrubs by affixing small laminated colored scrub pieces to foamcore “dolls” with velcro patches. Sixteen different colors were available. Second, the identical questionnaire was also sent to 249 medical professionals who took the online survey and selected scrub configurations and preferred colors with toggle buttons. Thirdly, 341 potential patients were given an online survey asking them to guess the profession of a medical professional, based on the color of her scrubs. A list of ten possible professions was listed below her picture and the same picture was shown ten different times with the same woman wearing different colored scrubs each time. To help understand and interpret the data, a literature review of color symbolism, marketing, psychology, physiology, and history was completed.
Patient and medical professional response was several times greater than initially anticipated. Both groups appeared to be quite emotionally invested in the choice of scrub colors and had strong preferences about what colors were associated with medical professionals.
The most preferred color for medical professionals was light blue, light green, and then darker blue. Professionals who wore these colors were likely to be identified first as a doctor, a nurse, and then a dentist. Nurses had wider lattitude with colors and were recognized as nurses if they wore the afforementioned colors or pink, purple, gray, or red. Patient surveys demonstrated that the colors blue and green were clearly viewed as “medical” colors. If other colors were worn by professionals, patients became confused at their role.
Professionals were consistent in their views on scrubs and no difference was seen between online and in-person interviews. The colors overwhelmingly preferred by medical professionals were: light blue, light green, and a darker blue. These colors were seen as the most “professional.” Darker colors and bright and light colors were considered unacceptable. Most professionals didn’t think a trim color was necessary and only 15% of them preferred two colored scrubs. A majority of the participants believed the fit of scrubs needed improvement and had various suggestions for upgrades and betterment.