Abstract:
Use of mobile phones in the neonatal intensive care unit by healthcare workers can lead to contamination and spread of healthcare associated infections among hospitalized neonates. An understanding of dynamics of mobile phone usage as well as contaminating bacteria forms an important step in developing infection control strategies to regulate its use in clinical areas of the neonatal intensive care unit.
Methods: I conducted a cross-sectional study to assess mobile phone use, attitudes about their use among staff of the neonatal intensive care unit of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital as well as bacterial contamination of mobile phone devices. The study was conducted over a 3 week period. I used unobtrusive observation, self-administered questionnaire administration and took imprints of mobile phone devices using RODAC plates to achieve the objectives of the study. A total of 40 phones were sampled and imprints were taken and cultured. Antibiotic Sensitivity was done.
Results: Most respondents (94.7%) claimed to use mobile phones whilst at work; and this was mainly for clinical reasons. The majority of respondents (86.8%) believed their phones were contaminated whilst 24 (63.4%) were likely to support banning of mobile phone use in clinical areas. Mobile phone use was dominant (88.9%) by medical doctors. The commonest use of the mobile phone was for clinical examination of patients. Most phones (97.5%) were contaminated by microorganisms. Average colony count was 3 colony forming units per cm2. Multi-drug resistant coagulase negative Staphylococcus 40(36.4%) was the commonest organism isolated from the phones.
Conclusion: There was high use of mobile phone in patient care areas of the NICU mostly done by medical doctors. Most phones of healthcare workers were contaminated with potential pathogenic bacteria. Banning the use of mobile phones in the patient care areas in the NICU is a feasible strategy that is likely to be supported by staff.
