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The Microorganisms on Nurses' and Health Care Workers' Uniforms in the Intensive Care Units
Maha Abu Radwan1, Muayyad Ahmad2
11 Jordanian Royal Medical Services, Amman, Jordan.
Abstract:
The objective of this study was to identify the types of microorganisms present on uniforms of nurses, physicians, respiratory therapist, students, and housekeepers in intensive care units (ICUs). A convenience sampling was used to recruit the participants ( N = 115) who work at military hospital in Jordan. Environmental cultures ( N = 305) were taken from the participants who were nurses, physicians, students, respiratory therapists, and housekeepers. The number of participating nurses was 58 (50.43%). There were 24 types of microorganisms found on the participants' uniforms. Staphylococcus epidermidis was found 59 times (61.3%) on the three areas of uniform culture. High level of contamination was found among all the participants, and it was the highest in physicians (85%) followed by nurse (79.3%) (χ2 = 24.87, p < .001). None of the participants' characteristics have correlated significantly with the uniform contamination. High percentages of uniform's contamination among all those who work in the ICUs were found.
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