| Literature DB >> 35699640 |
Sofia Di Mario1, Sara Dionisi2, Emanuele Di Simone3, Gloria Liquori4, Claudia Cianfrocca1, Marco Di Muzio1, Noemi Giannetta5.
Abstract
AIM: Nurses use their smartphones during the work shift. The objective of this review is to investigate the presence of bacteria on mobile phones and the procedures to disinfect or decontaminate the smartphone and decrease the infection rate.Entities:
Year: 2022 PMID: 35699640 PMCID: PMC9449712 DOI: 10.54614/FNJN.2022.21190
Source DB: PubMed Journal: Florence Nightingale J Nurs ISSN: 2687-6442
Research Question Identified Through PIOS Methodology
| Research Question Identified Through PIOS Methodology | ||
|---|---|---|
| P | Patient | Nurses or nursing students who use smartphones during care activities |
| I | Intervention | Evaluation of the relation between smartphone use during healthcare and increased infections |
| O | Outcome | Increase in the infections |
| S | Setting | All hospital care settings: intensive care, medicine and surgery unit, and first aid |
| Research question | Can the use of smartphones during clinical practice really increase the incidence of healthcare-related infections? | |
Note: PIOS = Patient, Intervention, Outcome, Setting.
Figure 1.PRISMA Flowchart. PRISMA = Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses.
Quality Assessment
| Quality Assessment | |||||||
| No. of Study | Study Design | Risk of Bias | Inconsistency | Indirectness | Imprecision | Other Consideration | Quality |
| Outcome: | To assess the presence of bacterial contamination of healthcare workers’ smartphones | ||||||
|
| Prospective study | Not serious | Not serious | Not serious | Not serious | None | ⨁⨁◯◯Low |
|
| Case–control study | Not serious | Not serious | Not serious | Not serious | None | ⨁⨁◯◯Low |
|
| Prospective study | Not serious | Not serious | Not serious | Not serious | None | ⨁⨁◯◯Low |
|
| Prospective study | Not serious | Not serious | Not serious | Serious | None | ⨁◯◯◯Very low |
|
| Cross-sectional study | Not serious | Not serious | Not serious | Not serious | None | ⨁⨁◯◯Low |
|
| Cross-sectional study | Not serious | Not serious | Not serious | Not serious | None | ⨁⨁◯◯Low |
| Outcome: | To assess the frequency of bacterial contamination and antibiotic resistance | ||||||
|
| cross-sectional study | Not serious | Not serious | Not serious | Not serious | None | ⨁⨁◯◯Low |
| Outcome: | To assess the presence of bacterial flora on the hands and smartphones of healthcare workers | ||||||
|
| Prospective study | Not serious | Not serious | Not serious | Not serious | None | ⨁⨁◯◯Low |
|
| Cross-sectional study | Not serious | Not serious | Not serious | Serious | None | ⨁◯◯◯Very low |
| Outcome: | To compare the contamination of healthcare workers’ smartphones with non-healthcare workers’ smartphones | ||||||
|
| Case–control study | Not serious | Not serious | Not serious | Serious | None | ⨁◯◯◯Very low |
| Outcome: | To consider creating a cleaning protocol for operators’ smartphones to reduce bacterial transmission | ||||||
|
| Cross-sectional study | Not serious | Not serious | Not serious | Not serious | None | ⨁⨁◯◯Low |
| Outcome: | To evaluate the presence of RNA on the surface of smartphones | ||||||
|
| Prospective study | Not serious | Not serious | Not serious | Not serious | None | ⨁⨁◯◯Low |
Extraction Table
| No. | Authors and Years | Title | Study Design | Setting | Study Object | Sample Selected | Study Results |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Qureshi et al. 2020 | Mobile phones in the orthopedic operating room: microbial colonization and antimicrobial resistance | Cross-sectional study | Pakistan | To investigate microbial colonization on the mobile phones of healthcare professionals in the orthopedic operating room | All orthopedic and anesthesia attendings, residents and technicians, and all nursing staff working in the orthopedic operating room | Ninety-three of 100 mobile phones were contaminated. Species isolated were coagulase-negative |
| 2 | Galazzi et al. 2019 | Microbiological colonization of healthcare workers’ mobile phones in a tertiary-level Italian intensive care unit | Prospective study | Italy | To evaluate the contamination rate of healthcare workers’ mobile phones in intensive care units before and after shifts. | 50 health workers including 28 nurses, 16 doctors, 6 assistants | 98% of the nurses’ smartphones were most contaminated with coagulase-negative |
| 3 | Simmond et al. 2019 | Mobile phones as fomites for potential pathogens in hospitals: microbiome analysis reveals hidden contaminants. | Case - control study | UK | To analyze the amount and diversity of bacterial contamination of healthcare workers’ phones. Identify the potential pathogens prevalence and compare microbial communities of hospital staff and control group | 250 hospital staff smartphones, 191 control group participants. | Almost all 99.2% of hospital staff’s smartphones were contaminated with potential pathogens, with a significantly higher rate than the control rate. The results revealed MRSA, vancomycin-resistant |
| 4 | Shah et al. 2019 | Microorganism isolated from mobile phones and hands of healthcare workers in a tertiary care hospital of Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India | Prospective study | India | To verify the bacterial flora on hands and smartphones and the bacterial correlation between the dominant hand and the phone | 300 samples were collected from phones and dominant hand of nurses, doctors, support staff working in TIN, TI, and DEA | 150 smartphones and 150 dominant hands have been analyzed. High contamination rate was found on doctors’ phones (32.66%), support staff (32%), and finally nurses (31.33%). The most isolated microorganism was coagulase-negative |
| 5 | Khashei et al. 2018 | The occurrence of nosocomial pathogens on cell phones of healthcare workers in an Iranian tertiary care hospital | Cross-sectional study | Iran | To analyze healthcare workers’ cell phones to determine the frequency of bacterial contamination and antibiotic resistance | 25 healthcare workers’ mobile and 75 medicine students | 139 potentially pathogenic bacterial colonies were isolated ( |
| 6 | Dorost et al. 2018 | Microbial contamination data of keypad and touchscreen of cell phones among hospital and non-hospital staff—A case study: Iran | Cross-sectional study | Iran | To compare mobile phone, keyboard, and touchscreen microbial contamination of healthcare and non-healthcare workers | 456 smartphones, including 240 healthcare professionals and 216 non-healthcare professionals | Bacterial contamination is significantly lower on touch screens than on keyboards. Nurses’ phones have been more contaminated. The bacteria most present were |
| 7 | Kanayama et al. 2017 |
| Cross-sectional study | Japan | To prove the correlation between bacteria found on phones and those on the healthcare workers’ hands. | Analyze the hands and smartphones of 221 nurses in 23 general care units | Of the 221 smartphones used, 16 (7.2%) have been contaminated with |
| 8 | Murgier et al 2016. | Microbial flora on cell phones in an orthopedic surgery room before and after decontamination. | Prospective study | France | To examine the bacterial colonies present on the phone surfaces introduced into the orthopedic surgical room and evaluate the decontamination effectiveness | 52 participants (29 men and 23 women aged 22-52) including nurses, surgeons, anesthetists | Before decontamination, the average number of colony units was 258 per cell phone. After cleaning, the number significantly reduced to 127. Mobile phones were bacteria carriers. |
| 9 | Kotris et al. 2016 | Identification of microorganisms on mobile phones of intensive care unit healthcare workers and medical students in the tertiary hospital. | Prospective study | Croatia | To identify the microorganism difference in the intensive care unit on the mobile phones of nurses, doctors, and students | 50 health care workers’ mobile phone swabs who work in intensive care unit and 60 medical student swabs | Of 110 processed smartphones, 25 (22.7%) devices were free of contamination. No significant difference between health workers and students in bacteria terms had been revealed. The bacteria isolated common to both groups was |
| 10 | Kirkby et al 2016 | Cell Phones in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit: How to Eliminate Unwanted Germs. | Cross-sectional study. | USA | To affirm that mobile phones are a reservoir of potentially harmful microorganisms and implement a disinfection protocol for them. | 18 participants including family members and nurses, doctors, technicians in the neonatal intensive care unit | All smartphones tested positive for bacterial colonization, the prevalence rate after decontamination has been significantly lower. |
| 11 | Pillet et al. 2015 | Contamination of healthcare workers’ mobile phones by epidemic viruses. | Prospective study | France | To investigate RNA from epidemic viruses including rotavirus, flu, respirators on healthcare workers’ smartphones | 114 health workers (35 doctors, 32 nurses, 30 residents, 27 OSS) in adult or pediatric units | The medical staff used the smartphone more frequently than the nurses. More use has been in adult wards than in pediatric wards. RNA virus has been isolated from 42 of the 109 mobile phones collected. The rotavirus has been found on 39 devices, respiratory syncytial virus on 3, and metapneumovirus on 1. |
| 12 | Ustun & Cihangiroglu, 2012 | Healthcare workers’ mobile phones: a potential cause of microbial cross-contamination between hospitals and community | Transversal study | Turkey | To determine pathogenic microorganisms on health care workers’ cell surfaces | 183 mobile phones; 94 (51.4%) from nurses, 32 (17.5%) from laboratory workers, and 57 (31.1%) from healthcare personnel | 179 cells tested positive for culture, of which 17 MRSA, 20 |
Note: MRSA = methicillin-resistant Staphylococci.