The Microorganisms on Nurses' and Health Care Workers' Uniforms in the Intensive Care Units

The objective of this study was to identify the types of microorganisms present on uniforms of nurses, physicians, respiratory therapist, students, and housekeepers in intensive care units (ICUs). A convenience sampling was used to recruit the participants (N = 115) who work at military hospital in Jordan. Environmental cultures (N = 305) were taken from the participants who were nurses, physicians, students, respiratory therapists, and housekeepers. The number of participating nurses was 58 (50.43%). There were 24 types of microorganisms found on the participants' uniforms. Staphylococcus epidermidis was found 59 times (61.3%) on the three areas of uniform culture. High level of contamination was found among all the participants, and it was the highest in physicians (85%) followed by nurse (79.3%) (chi(2) = 24.87, p < .001). None of the participants' characteristics have correlated significantly with the uniform contamination. High percentages of uniform's contamination among all those who work in the ICUs were found.