Background: Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) present a formidable challenge for healthcare institutions, resulting in heightened mortality, morbidity, and economic burden. Within healthcare settings, various equipment and materials, including mobile phones, can potentially act as sources of infection. This study sought to examine the occurrence of bacterial contamination on mobile phones utilized by healthcare workers (HCWs) in intensive care units (ICUs), pediatric intensive care units (PICUs), neonatal intensive care units (NICUs), and cardiac care units (CCUs) within a central hospital (CH) and two peripheral hospitals (PHs) situated in the southwestern province of Saudi Arabia.
Materials and methods: We collected a total of 157 samples from mobile phones utilized by HCWs across all ICUs in the CH and PHs. These samples underwent bacteriological analysis to evaluate the degree of bacterial contamination.
Results: We found that 45 out of 55 samples from physicians (81.81%) and 58 out of 77 samples from nurses (75.32%) showed bacterial contamination. Contamination rates on HCWs' mobile phones in the ICU, PICU, and NICU departments of the CH were observed at 69.56%, 80.95%, and 70.27%, respectively. Furthermore, the overall contamination rates in the ICUs, NICUs, and CCUs of the PHs were 78.26%, 88.88%, and 66.66%, respectively. The overall contamination rates of mobile phones in the CH and PHs were 72.11% and 81.13%, respectively.
Conclusion: These findings underscore the necessity of routinely disinfecting the mobile phones of HCWs to mitigate the risk of cross-contamination. Implementing robust disinfection protocols can significantly contribute to curtailing the propagation of bacterial pathogens and reducing the incidence of HAIs in healthcare settings.
Keywords: Jazan; Saudi Arabia; bacterial contamination; healthcare workers; hospital-associated infections; mobile phones.