Microbial flora of nurses' hands. III. The relationship between staphylococcal skin populations and persistence of carriage.

The hands of 50 nurses and 50 controls were tested for coagulase-positive staphylococcus. Twenty-eight percent of both groups were carriers. The mean staphylococcal count on the palm of the hand was 13.7 per 16 cm-2 in nurses as compared to 442.7 per 16 cm-2 in the control group. The number of persistent carriers was the same for each group, but 25 percent of all cultures from nurses were positive for Staphylococcus aureus as compared to 14.2 percent of the cultures from the control group. It was concluded that there was no direct correlation between high staphylococcal counts and persistence of carriage. The skin as a site of carriage of Staphylococcus aureus was found to be of greater importance in nurses than in control subjects.