Impact of chlorhexidine bathing on methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus incidence in an endemic chronic care setting: A randomized controlled trial

Chlorhexidine versus routine bathing to prevent multidrug-resistant organisms and all-cause bloodstream infections in general medical and surgical units (ABATE Infection trial): a cluster-randomised trial

“…25 The last study involved three uncommon chronic care hospital units where one unit was randomly assigned to bathe patients daily with CHG for 12 months resulting in a 71% reduction in MRSA incidence among 122 persons. 35 This last study was the only one where the reported benefit was not significant. All but one study used 2% norinse CHG cloths.…”

Joint Healthcare Infection Society (HIS) and Infection Prevention Society (IPS) guidelines for the prevention and control of meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in healthcare facilities

“…97,100 Another three studies reported adverse events, but did not specify what they were. 86,93,99 Despite the many studies reporting adverse events, meta-analysis showed that the overall rate of occurrence was low (0.15%) and not significantly different than the rate reported for studies which did not use skin decolonisation therapy or used a placebo (0.12%, OR=1.30 [CI95% 0.97-1.76], p=0.0811). The use of oral CHG was associated with a higher risk of adverse events (24% versus 0% in comparison group, OR=85.07 [CI95% 5.08-1424.00], p=0.0020) including burning sensation, unpleasant taste, dryness of the mouth and tenderness.…”

“…There was strong evidence of benefit from twelve RCTs, 86-98 four controlled trials, [99][100][101][102] eleven ITS studies, [103][104][105][106][107][108][109][110][111][112][113] two retrospective cohort studies 114,115 and one CBA study 116 which investigated the effectiveness of CHG washing on the prevalence of MRSA colonisation, incidence of MRSA acquisition, incidence of MRSA infection and the eradication of MRSA. The results of the meta-analyses showed that decolonisation therapy with CHG, either alone or in combination with another agent (PVP, polysporin or mupirocin), was consistently better than the comparison group (either no decolonisation or placebo) for all outcomes, except for incidence of MRSA acquisition when CHG was used alone.…”

“…There was moderate evidence from fourteen studies, 86,[88][89][90][91][92][93][94]96,97,99,100,102,109,121 which reported adverse events associated with the use of CHG. These included rash, 91,94,100 burning sensation, 92,97 itching, 92,94,97,100,109 redness, 92,109 dryness, 92 irritation, 97 fissures 97 and other not-specified skin reactions.…”

Chlorhexidine-based body washing for colonization and infection of methicillin-resistant <em>Staphylococcus aureus</em> and vancomycin-resistant <em>Enterococcus</em>: an updated meta-analysis

“…Third, heterogeneity was rather high in two of the four analyses ( I 2 >50%), but this appeared to partly attribute to differences in the size of the risk estimates between studies rather than a lack of association. Fourth, study patients had wide variation in baseline features, and were from different kinds of units such as ICUs, 5 , 10 , 20 , 23 , 25 , 27 , 28 , 30 general medicine units, tertiary care hospital units, 24 , 29 and inpatient medical units, 19 potentially leading to significant heterogeneity in outcomes, which limited the capacity for pooled analyses.…”