Abstract:
Mobile phones of health professionals can harbor microbes, which can be transferred hands to
hands and mouth. They can cause nosocomial infections to patient, family members, and
community at large. Globally, nosocomial infections are a major health problem, which affects
more than 25% of admitted patients particularly, in developing countries. The emergence of
antimicrobial resistant bacteria is another health problem.
Therefore this study was aimed to determine the prevalence, antimicrobial susceptibility patterns
and factors associated with bacterial isolates from health professional’s mobile phone in Hiwot
Fana specialized University Hospital, Eastern Ethiopia from February to March 2018.
A cross-sectional study was conducted among 228 health professionals’ mobile phones. Simple
random sampling technique was used to select the study participants. Data were collected using
self-administered questionnaire. Swab from health professional’s mobile phone devices were
collected and cultured to isolate any bacteria. Antimicrobial susceptibility tests were performed
on isolated bacteria to see the pattern. Data were entered into EPI-Data version 3.1 and analyzed
by using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) program version 20. The overall
prevalence of mobile phone contamination with one or two bacteria was 94.2% (213/226).
Coagulase Negative Staphylococci (58.8%), S. aureus (14.4%) and Klebsiella spps (6.9%) were
the most predominant isolates. The overall prevalence of multidrug resistance was 69.9%. Male
(AOR: 4.09, 95% CI: 1.06, 15.83) and cleaning (AOR: 4.08, 95% CI: 1.23, 13.5) were
statistically associated with mobile phone contamination of health professionals. Health
professionals should clean their mobile phone regularly and special measures need to laboratory
professionals of Hiwot Fana Specialized University Hospital.
