Comparison of the Microbial Colonization of Mobile Phone between Health Care Personnel and Non-Care Personnel of Babol University of Medical Science Hospitals

Nowadays mobile phone is one of the most essential tools in social and professional life of individuals. The patients, visitors and staff of health care and physicians in hospitals are also the users of mobile phones. This can make mobile phones a reservoir for transmission of pathogens and nosocomial infections. The aim of this study was to investigate the bacteria on cell phones of physicians and staff of health-care in teaching hospitals of Babol University of Medical Science hospitals, Babol, Iran. In this cross-sectional study, 192 cell phones of health care staffs and other non-clinical employees of Babol University of Medical Science hospitals were randomly chosen and sampled using sterilized cotton swabs. After placing the samples into the transferring mediums, they were fast transferred to the laboratory of Amirkola hospital. Then they were cultured on blood agar and McConkey medium. They were incubated at 37?C of temperature for 24 hours. Microorganisms were isolated by appropriate biochemical tests and the bacteria positive and negative cases were compared for different variables by logistic regression model. Of all 192 studied cases, 130 (67.7%) were positive for bacterial infection that 9 cases were infected with more than one bacterium. The most frequent isolated bacteria were Bacillus subtilis (45 cases, 23.6%) and Staphylococcus epidermises (25 cases, 13.1%) respectively. Of 62 samples that had not bacterial infections, 16 (8.4%) samples were completely negative and 46 samples contaminated with yeast. In comparison among sex, type of activity, hospitals and prevalence of bacterial contamination of cell phone, there was a significant difference between the level of education and prevalence of bacterial contamination of cell phone. There was the lowest rate of cell phone contamination in medical students and residents. According to results of this study, the mobile phones have significant microbial contamination. It seems that the increase in educational level can reduce the rate of contamination of cell phone.