Does earwax lose its pathogens on your auriscope overnight?
BMJ
; 305(6868): 1571-3, 1992.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-1286392
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES:
To describe the organisms cultured from general practitioners' auriscope earpieces; and to explore general practitioners' perceptions of the possibility of cross infection from contaminated auriscope earpieces and of how their auriscope earpieces are cleaned.DESIGN:
Microbiological survey of auriscope earpieces in two general practices and a semistructured questionnaire sent to 105 general practitioners.SETTING:
General practitioners served by one district general hospital microbiology laboratory in the north of England.RESULTS:
Organisms were cultured from 41 (93%) of 44 auriscope earpieces, of which 14 (32%) carried potential pathogens; four (9%) were heavily contaminated. Of the 85 (81%) general practitioners who responded, 72 (85%) believed that contaminated auriscope earpieces could cause serious infection, 66 (78%) did not clean earpieces between patients, and 70 (82%) thought that patients would mind if they knew that dirty earpieces were used.CONCLUSIONS:
Almost a third of auriscope earpieces were contaminated by pathogenic bacteria. Although general practitioners suspected this, most did not ensure that a clean earpiece was used for each patient.
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Otolaryngology
/
Cerumen
/
Cross Infection
/
Equipment Contamination
Type of study:
Qualitative_research
Limits:
Humans
Language:
En
Journal:
BMJ
Journal subject:
MEDICINA
Year:
1992
Document type:
Article