The relationship between traditional dress and bacterial contamination in the hospital setting-a cross sectional study

Abstract BACKGROUND/INTRODUCTION Healthcare worker uniforms are a potential reservoir for microorganisms, and thus contaminated dress may transmit pathogenic organisms in hospital settings. This study aims at isolating the bacteria from traditional dresses used in a tertiary care hospital, Saudi Arabia, and compares them with whitecoat. Also, this study explores the relationship between bacterial contamination and type of department, type of provider specialty, and dress textile material. METHODS A Descriptive Analytic cross-sectional study was conducted. Multiple culture swabs were obtained from these traditional dresses and whitecoats of the healthcare workers and were analyzed for the rate of bacterial contamination. This study also compares the bacterial contamination rates between medical workers and non-medical personnel like the administrative staff. A Sample size of 742 swabs from 139 participants,from multiple sites was obtained.Data analysis was presented as mean± SD, or as median and range according to the type of distribution of each variable. The Chi-square test was used to test for the association and/or difference between two categorical variables and p-value for statistical significance. RESULTS It was seen that bacterial contamination of 29.7% was seen in traditional dress compared to 22.5% of those wearing Whitecoat. Concerning the type of traditional dress, the highest rate of bacterial contamination was observed with Thop (40%), followed by Niqab (36.1%). Regarding the source textile material, the mixed type had the highest rate of bacterial contamination (35.7%). CONCLUSION The traditional dress showed to be higher in the rate of bacterial contamination in comparison to whitecoats. Also, we found that the type of department and type provider specialty concerning bacterial contamination has a no different effect when compared to others. in our results, the administrative staff carries the same results as healthcare workers regarding bacterial contamination highlighting that they can share in the risk of bacterial transmission.