EVALUATING THE EFFECT OF HOSPITAL MEDICAL INSTRUMENTS ON THE NOSOCOMIAL INFECTION RISK

During the previous decades increasing the hospital infections have taken into
account, increasingly. In the United States, almost 1.7 million hospital cases and 99000 deaths is
reported annually. Surfaces of medical instruments such as Blood pressure cuff, stethoscope and
Dialysis machine can accelerate the infection transfer. In this research, determining the hygienic
circumstances of instrument surfaces has been investigated in Qom Shahid Beheshti Hospital.
Materials & Methods:This experimental study was performed during 10 weeks in two stages
consisting of before and after intervention. The intervention was aimed to the cleaning program which
is carried out routinely by hospital tenants. The assessment was applied two times a week with two
methods including ICNA and ACC. The results were reported as “clean” and “dirty”. Statistical
analysis was done with SPSS software version 18. Wilcoxon and Mc-Nemar tests were used.
Results: Based on the ICNA method, 61% and 39.5% of all objects were “dirty” before and after the
interventions, respectively. Whereas, based on the ACC method, 76% and 69.5% of all objects
reported as “dirty” before and after the intervention, respectively . Results showed that, the
intervention (cleaning program) had a significant impact on increasing the hygienic status according to
both ICNA (Pvalue=0.00) and ACC (Pvalue<0.001) methods.
Conclusion: The cleaning program can be used as an efficient approach to decrease the surface
contamination of medical instruments. Monitoring the surface of instruments with ICNA and ACC
methods as a routine program can be useful to enhance the cleaning process and reducing the
transmission of infections