Bacterial Contamination Rate of Nurse's White Coats in Different Wards of Sirjan Hospitals in 2017: A Short Report

Research into microbial contamination has shown that nursing white coat contains a variety of microorganisms that can lead to disease and cross-infection transmission in nurses. So, the aim of this study was to identify the bacterial contamination of nurses’ white coats in different wards of Sirjan hospitals in 2017.
In this cross-sectional study, the contamination of 200 nurses’ white coats was surveyed in the hospitals of Sirjan city. Sampling was done by wet sterile swab. The colonies formed on the medium were examined and biochemical tests were used to identify the isolated bacteria. Paired t-test was used to analyze the data.
The most common type of pathogen isolated from the nursing white coats in Imam Reza Hospital was Staphylococcus epidermidis (57.83%) and in Dr. Gharazi Hospital was also Staphylococcus epidermidis (51.35%), and the least pathogen in Imam Reza Hospital was related to Pseudomonas (1.2%) and in Dr. Gharazi Hospital was Escherichia coli as well as Pseudomonas (1.35%).
Regarding the results, it can be said that the contamination of nurses and medical staff’s white coats is unavoidable. This issue shows the importance of disinfecting, regular cleaning of the nurses’ white coats and using disposable white coats in the periods between delivering therapy to the patients that can lead to a reduction in the transmission of contamination from one patient to the other patients as well as the medical staff.