Blood culture results at a research and training hospital and the importance of training

Objectives: This study aims to measure the level of knowledge of the nurses who collect blood cultures at our hospital, and after providing the necessary training, evaluate the distribution of microbial growth and rate of contamination in blood cultures that are referred to our laboratory during a 1-year term. Methods and Materials: A survey was conducted to assess the level of knowledge regarding blood culture acquisition with the participation of 99 nurses at our hospital in October 2017. Blood cultures sent to our laboratory during 2017 May-October were retrospectively evaluated in terms of their results, contamination rates, and number of bottles. Taking survey results into account, monthly trainings were provided to the nurses for 6 months starting from October 2017, and blood culture results and error rates were investigated prospectively. Results: It was determined from the survey results that the level of knowledge regarding the need to wipe the rubber septum of the blood culture bottle with alcohol prior to adding the blood sample (23.2%) and definition of a blood culture set (25.3%) were quite low. It was found that while the contamination rate prior to training was 6.4%, it fell to 3.7% after training, and although the rate of single-bottle cultures was 6.3% before training, it decreased by 2.0%. Conclusions: Standardizing blood culture acquisition with the provided training will produce maximal benefit for every laboratory in terms of cost and workload.