Newly cleaned physician uniforms and infrequently washed white coats have similar rates of bacterial contamination after an 8-hour workday: A randomized controlled trial
✍ Scribed by Marisha Burden; Lilia Cervantes; Diane Weed; Angela Keniston; Connie S. Price; Richard K. Albert
- Book ID
- 102343618
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2011
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 234 KB
- Volume
- 6
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 1553-5592
- DOI
- 10.1002/jhm.864
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
BACKGROUND: Governmental agencies in the United Kingdom and Scotland have recently instituted guidelines banning physicians' white coats and the wearing of long-sleeved garments to decrease nosocomial transmission of bacteria.
OBJECTIVE:
Our aim was to compare the degree of bacterial and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus contamination of physicians' white coats with that of newly laundered, standardized short-sleeved uniforms after an 8-hour workday and to determine the rate at which bacterial contamination of the uniform ensued.
DESIGN:
The design was a prospective, randomized controlled trial. SETTING: The setting was a university-affiliated public safety-net hospital. PARTICIPANTS: One hundred residents and hospitalists on an internal medicine service participated. INTERVENTION: Subjects wore either a physician's white coat or a newly laundered short-sleeved uniform. MEASUREMENTS: Bacterial colony count and the frequency with which methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus was cultured from both garments over time were measured.
RESULTS:
No statistically significant differences were found in bacterial or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus contamination of physicians' white coats compared with newly laundered short-sleeved uniforms or in contamination of the skin at the wrists of physicians wearing either garment. Colony counts of newly laundered uniforms were essentially zero, but after 3 hours of wear they were nearly 50% of those counted at 8 hours.