Impact of healthcare workers’ cell phones on the spread of multidrugresistant microorganisms

Abstract

Objective. To study the possibility of transferring multidrug resistant microorganisms through healthcare workers’ cell phones between medical institutions in Khabarovsk. Materials and Methods. It was a comparative prospective study to assess contamination of cell phones with multidrug-resistant microorganisms in a population (n = 30) and among intensive care unit (ICU) physicians (n = 60) in medical institutions. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing was performed by disc-diffusion method. A total of 514 healthcare workers from medical institutions of Khabarovsk were interviewed. The study enrolled 58.9% (n = 303) of physicians and 41.1% (n = 211) of nurses. Results. Microbial contamination of the physicians’ cell phones with extensively drug-resistant (16.7%; n = 10) and pandrug-resistant strains (6.7%; n = 4) was found to be significantly higher than that in the population. Conclusions. Working in several medical institutions and the healthcare workers’ personal articles can be the ways of spreading resistant microorganisms.

Keywords

• surveillance
• antimicrobial resistance
• cell phones
• healthcare workers