Investigating Bacterial Contamination of Nurses’ Hands in ICU regarding their Using of Jewellery

Introduction: Nosocomial infection is a major challenge in health care system. In fact, it is regarded as one of the risk factors in hospitalized patients which results in a significant increase in mortality,morbidity and financial burden. Noscomial infection transmission via the hands of hospital personnel to patients is known as a primary method of transmission, however, revealing such effect to the healthcare workers in order to follow the proper behavior is somehow hard .Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the microbial contamination of nurses' hands regarding jewelry. Methods: This is a descriptive analytic study. The random sampling was applied which consisted of 50 nurses working in hospitals of Shahid Sadoughi Medical University of Yazd .Samples were collected at the beginning of the shift. In fact, a culture was taken using a cotton swab soaked with sterile water on the surface of the jewelry and the area under it immediately after the withdrawal. Moreover, the samples were gleaned as many as the number of jewelries from the other Hand or an area close to the position. The samples were analyzed utilizing SPSS software version 12. Results: As the study findings indicate, most jewelries involved gold rings and gold Bracelets. Culture results were reported as 45.8% positive and 54.2% negative. Thus, there was no significant difference (p=0.33). For the below surface of jewelries, culture results were 64.6 % positive and 35.4% negative (P=0.000). Jewelry culture results for the opposite hand involved 64.6% positive and 35.4% negative (P=0.000). In general, the three comparisons showed a significant difference (P=0.000) Conclusion: The findings reveal that using jewelries increases pollution. In other words, this will increase the probabaility of nosocomial infections and pathogens transmission. Therefore, it is recommended to remove jewelry during patient care.