You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Archimedes
Question 2 Does regular cleaning of stethoscopes result in a reduction in nosocomial infections?
  1. S Bandi1,
  2. A Conway2
  1. 1Department of Paediatrics, University Hospital, Coventry, UK
  2. 2Clinical Sciences Library, University Hospital, Coventry, UK
  1. Correspondence to S Bandi, Department of Paediatrics, University Hospital, Clifford Bridge Road, Coventry CV2 2DX, UK; seenu_dr{at}hotmail.com

https://doi.org/10.1136/archdischild-2011-301070

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    Scenario

    The hospital infection control policy suggests that the stethoscope diaphragm should be cleaned before and after each patient contact. You wonder whether regular cleaning of stethoscopes results in a reduction in hospital acquired infections.

    Structured clinical question

    In hospital patients [population], does regular cleaning of stethoscopes [intervention] reduce the incidence of nosocomial infection [outcome]?

    Search strategy and outcome

    The following resources were searched: Cochrane Library, Trip Database, Medline, PubMed, NHS Evidence and NICE. PubMed search words used were “stethoscope” AND “nosocomial”, “hospital acquired”, “HAI” AND “infection”, “pathogen”. No limits were placed on the search. Fourteen of the papers found were relevant and after further review, four were chosen (table 2).

    View this table:
    • In this window
    • In a new window
    Table 2

    Does regular cleaning of stethoscopes result in a reduction in nosocomial infections?

    Commentary

    Hospital acquired infections are increasing worldwide. In the UK and Ireland (excluding Scotland), the prevalence of healthcare associated infection (HAI) was 7.6% in 2006.1 The Centers for Disease …

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Competing interests None.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned, externally peer reviewed.