Antimicrobial-treated fabric scrubs can prevent pathogen proliferation on scrubs

Approximately 1.7 million healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) occur annually in US hospitals. The clothing of healthcare providers routinely becomes contaminated while caring for patients, and may serve as a pathogen source for transmission to patients. Previous studies indicated that antimicrobial-treated textiles/clothing demonstrated activity against pathogens; however, studies were limited by sample size, work setting and the lack of blinding.

To determine the efficacy of antimicrobial-treated fabric scrubs worn by registered nurses (RNs) and patient care technicians (PCTs) on medical/surgical wards to decrease the pathogen acquisition of scrubs, relationships between patient factors and pathogen acquisition, and satisfaction/adverse events by scrub type.

A double-blinded, three-arm, randomized, controlled trial with a crossover design was conducted with 127 subjects (post-hoc power=0.994) on medical/surgical wards in a full service, 248-bed, non-profit hospital. Subjects were RNs and PCTs providing patient care over three consecutive 12-h shifts. Two experimental scrubs [red-#1 (treated with zinc pyrithione alone) and blue-#2 (treated with zinc pyrithione plus hydrophilic fluorocarbon resin)] were evaluated against untreated control scrubs (black-#3).

Pathogen acquisition did not differ between swab locations, while pathogen proliferation was significantly lower for the blue-#2 scrubs compared with the red-#1 (P<0.001) and black-#3 (P<0.001) scrubs. There were no significant relationships between patient interactions, infections, care activities/characteristics and pathogen acquisition. One product-related adverse event was reported (red-#1 scrubs, headache). Scrub satisfaction was high.

Scrubs treated with zinc pyrithione plus hydrophilic fluorocarbon resin demonstrated lower pathogen proliferation compared with scrubs treated with zinc pyrithione alone or control scrubs. Introducing such scrubs in the healthcare setting may reduce the transmission of pathogens from the clothing of healthcare workers to patients and the environment, and reduce HAI rates.