Comparison of goose down and woolen pillows in terms of house dust mites

Abstract

This study was conducted to compare the goose down and the woolen pillows in terms of number of house dust mites per gram of dust. The study was conducted in Kars province, Turkey in September 2020. A total of 180 house dust samples were collected from 45 randomly selected houses in various districts of the city. The number of houses in which at least one sample was positive regarding mites was found to be 39 (86.66%). Overall, 137 (76.11%) of dust samples were mite positive. This rate was 87.77% in dust samples of woolen and 64.44% in dust samples of goose down pillows. The number of mites/g dust varied between 15 and 625 in mite-positive woolen pillows, 10 and 420 in mite-positive goose down pillows. Mean number of mites per g of dust was 127.67 in woolen pillows and 79.39 in goose down pillows. A statistically significant difference was found between woolen and goose down pillows in terms of the number of mites per gram of dust (P<0.05). A total of 1,362 mite specimens were isolated from the dust samples. As a result of the identification of isolated specimens; a total of 16 species belong to 10 genera and 6 families were determined. Of these; Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus (Trouessart, 1897) (65.85%), Lepidoglyphus destructor (Schrank) (9.25%) and Acarus siro Linnaeus (6.16%) were the most dominant species in terms of number of specimens.