Healthcare workers coats: a potential reservoir of microorganisms

Abstract

The objective was to determine the epidemiological characteristics of microorganisms present in the healthcare workers coats in a large hospital. It was a cross-sectional study carried out from January to August 2011. The samples were obtained by swabs from the pocket and abdominal region of professionals’ coats. Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics and chi-square test. The study included 100 professionals. We obtained 200 samples of coats. Of these 47% were positive with microbial growth, 73.6% showed resistance to one or more antimicrobials being 55.7% in the pockets and 44.3% in the abdominal region. The most important was the recovery of Staphylococcus spp in the two analyzed areas with resistance to various antibiotics, including oxacillin. The highest contamination was observed between nursing professionals coats (p <0.05) The coat of healthcare workers can become contaminated by microorganisms of epidemiological relevance, contributing to the potential spread of pathogens between patients and different environments.