Nasal carriage of Staphylococcus aureus and its relation to hand contamination of the staff of Imam Reza hospital

ntroduction: Staphylococcus aureus is one of the most important common factors of nosocomial infections which can lead to considerable fatality. Preventing patients from suffering infections resulting from S. aureus has a special place in controlling nosocomial infections, in which the first step is to determine and study the sources of bacteria in hospitals. Clinical staff is one of the sources of this bacterium. In the first step the samples were taken randomly from staffs, hands in different wards of Imam Reza Hospital. Then nasal samples were taken from the personnel whose culture was positive for S. aureus before and after washing, and S. aureus was determined by biochemical tests. Of 90 people chosen for the first step, 35 had contaminated hands in both sampling steps and 28 of them were nasal carries of S. aureus.Although there was a significant relationship between nasal carriage of Staphylococcus aureus and hand contamination, the relationships between these variables and sex, work shift and hospital ward were not statistically significant. This study showed that nasal carriage of Staphylococcus aureus can enhance hand contamination with these bacteria which helps bacteria circulation in the hospital environment.