Bacteriological Assessment of Stethoscope Used by Health Care Personnel in Attat Hospital, Snnp, Gurage Zone, Ethiopia

Abstract

The stethoscope has always been an important element of a physician's toolkit when it comes to examining patients. The widespread use of stethoscopes by health-care workers for patient examinations makes them a potential source of nosocomial infection transmission. The goal of this study was to see if stethoscopes used by different health-care professionals in Attat Hospital may transmit bacteria. From April to June 2018, a cross-sectional study was done in the molecular laboratory of Wolkite University's department of biotechnology and biology. A total of 26 stethoscopes from health workers who had direct contact with patients were gathered during the study period. The sample was obtained using a sterile cotton-tipped applicator saturated in a sterile solution of physiologic saline (0.85% sodium chloride) to swab the whole surface of the stethoscope's diaphragm and then inoculated into macconkey agar, tryptone soya agar, and blood agar medium. 18 (69.2%) stethoscopes out of total collected stethoscopes had bacterial growth, and 12 bacterial isolates were selected and characterized to genus level. Isolates include staphylococcus aureus (37.5%), coagulase negative staphylococci (28.12%), Streptococcus sp. (21.88%), and Bacillus sp. (12.5%). All isolates were susceptible to the co-trimoxazole and ciprofloxacine, while resistant to cifoxitine. They showed intermediate growth against vancomycine. All except streptococcus were found resistant against penicillin. Both S. aureus and CoNS were sensitive to the chloramphenicol; Streptococcus was intermediate while bacillus was resistant to the chloramphenicol. All stethoscopes (42.2%) that had never been cleaned and were last cleaned a week ago were severely contaminated, while those washed multiple times a day and cleansed between each patient before the examination of the patient had lower levels of contamination (27%).