Stethoscope: What Are You Hiding?

Stethoscope is used by all the people involved in health care service and is a potential source of infection if not decontaminated effectively. We conducted a cross sectional study with the aim of finding out the incidence and spectrum of contamination on stethoscope and the antibiotic resistance pattern observed amongst these organisms. We also assessed the effectiveness of 70 % ethyl alcohol-based disinfectant. A total of 320 stethoscopes used by health care workers were sampled. Overall contamination was 76.25 % of sampled stethoscopes. Coagulase Negative Staphylococcus (48 %) was the most common organism isolated followed by Staphylococcus aureus (41 %). MRSA was present at the rate of 21.4 % of total contamination rates. The incidence of contamination with gram negative organisms were not that frequent, Klebsiella (3 %), Pseudomonas (2 %), E. coli (2 %) and Acinetobacter (2 %). Antimicrobial susceptibility of these isolates was carried out using the Kirby Bauer�s disk diffusion method recommended in CLSI Guidelines 2017. The Gram-positive organisms showed resistance to penicillin (72.14 %) and cefoxitin (44.29 %). Decontamination with 70 % ethyl alcohol was 94.6 % effective. This study confirmed that the stethoscopes used by health care professionals can act as a potential carrier of infectious organisms.