Bacterial colonization of handheld devices in a tertiary care setting: a hygiene intervention study

Table 1 Bacteria identified in culture before and after the disinfectant intervention

	Overall	Pre-intervention	During intervention	p-value^a
	Overall	n (%)^b		p-value^a
S. aureus		12 (14)	6 (7)	0.13
Normal skin bacteria^c		72 (86)	56 (67)	< 0.01
Normal respiratory bacteria^d		12 (14)	12 (14)	> 0.99
Others^e		1 (1)	1 (1)	–

^a p-values were derived from chi-squared test and the result omitted (−) when sample size < 5.
^b n is referring to the total number of bacterial species found, while % is giving the number of species to the denominator of total samples (168). Before and after intervention eras both comprised of 84 samples each, some of which contained multiple types of bacteria. The surplus when numbers or percentages are added up reflects the extent of multiple species per sample.
^c Skin colonizing bacteria, excluding S. aureus
^d Common bacteria known to colonize the respiratory tract
^e Comprising of Streptococcus milleri identified in one sample before intervention and Bacillus spp. in one sample after intervention

ISSN: 2047-2994