Microbial contamination of procedure gloves after opening the container and during exposure in the environment

Abstract

The objective of this study was to quantify the colony forming units (cfu) on latex procedure gloves in the beginning, middle, and end of the containers in real (professional) and controlled (researcher) gloving situations; evaluate the microbial load of the gloves, considering the time of exposure in the environment. This comparative prospective study was conducted at an intensive care unit of a teaching hospital. The microbiological data was collected from the gloves using digital-pressure. Microbiological evaluations were performed on 186 pairs of gloves: 93 in the control group and 93 in real gloving situations. In the control group, the average cfu was 4.7 against 6.2 in the real gloving situation. Hence, no statistically significant difference was found (p=.601). In addition, the cfu values of gloves in the beginning, middle and end of the containers also did not show any significant differences (p>.05). The most common strain was Staphylococcus spp. The time of exposure in the environment did not increase the cfu value of the latex gloves.

Contamination level of unused gloves in King Saud University dental clinics

“…According to the results, 73% of the boxes were contaminated before use or exposure; this contamination could have arisen in the manufacturing, shipping or storage process of these boxes (Berthelot et al, 2006). Accordingly, the contamination of the boxes has affected the first glove sample immediately after opening the box without being exposed to any dental working environment, this also confirms that the contamination is mostly due to manufacturing contamination (Ferreira et al, 2011;Berthelot et al, 2006). Additionally, this could also result from handling techniques despite proper hand hygiene before sampling.…”

“…Previous studies have investigated the contamination rates of unused non-sterile gloves contained in an open box in different hospital settings (Ferreira et al, 2011;Hall et al, 2014;Diaz et al, 2008). It was documented that unused non-sterile gloves exposed to the hospital environment are contaminated and have a serious role in transmitting infections.…”

“…Moreover, recommendations such as modifying glove withdrawal techniques and improving hand hygiene were suggested (Hughes et al, 2013). However, in another study when aseptic and typical glove withdrawal techniques were compared, it was found that there is no statistical significance in the difference of microbial quantity implying that their exposure to the environment is the main source of contamination (Ferreira et al, 2011).…”

Contamination of Unused, Nonsterile Gloves in the Critical Care Setting: A Comparison of Bacterial Glove Contamination in Medical, Surgical and Burn Intensive Care Units

“…Our findings are consistent with previously reported rates of several studies describing contamination rates of 55-87% and average bioburdens ranging from 3.4-6.2 CFU per glove pair. [7][8][9] Significant differences in the rate of Identification of a representative from each morphologic subtype isolated was performed using the selective culturing methods described in the Methods are shown in Table 3. No Gram-negative bacteria were isolated throughout the culturing process across all samples.…”

Microbiological testing of devices used in maintaining peripheral venous catheters

“…At the center of discussions of infection control in health services is the behavior of health professionals, and it is mentioned as an important tool in the implementation of safe practices 1 , 13 . But even though measures to prevent and control bloodstream infection are carefully established by guidelines, the reality of health care points to unsatisfactory levels of compliance by health professionals, especially for the practices of washing hands (10.7%) and disinfection of hubs and connectors (40.0%) prior to drug administration 10 , 14 .…”