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BEARDED V/S NON BEARDED OT PERSONAL, A POTENTIAL THREAT FOR SSI AND NOSOCOMIAL INFECTION – A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY

Rakshit Ahuja, Naveen K. Singh, Sanjeew K. Chowdhury, Neha R. Mutha

Abstract


Possession of beard or facial hairs in the operating room staff is debatable as well as controversial for past many decades, as it has been considered a risk factor for surgical site infection and nosocomial infection. Here, we have attempted to look into this controversial subject and have tested upon operating room staff (n1 = 20) with equal number of those with beard (na= 10) and those who were clean shaved (nb= 10). Both bearded and non-bearded population harbored Staph. aureus (100% vs 90%) among them highly resistant strains were positive more in bearded population than non-bearded population (50% vs 22.2%). Few samples were also positive for K. pneumoniae (33.3% vs 0%) along with S. aureus in non-bearded population and only 10% had positive Acinetobacter growth along with Staph aureus in bearded population. However, no patient operated by the operating staff (n2 = 17) had positive growth for these organisms and did not suffer with surgical site infection.

Keywords


SSI, Nosocomial infection, Surgical site infection, S. aureus, K. pneumoniae, Facial hairs in operation theatre.

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References


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