↓ Skip to main content

Microbiological contamination of mobile phones of clinicians in intensive care units and neonatal care units in public hospitals in Kuwait

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Infectious Diseases, October 2015
Altmetric Badge

About this Attention Score

  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (92nd percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (97th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
1 news outlet
twitter
26 X users
facebook
2 Facebook pages
googleplus
1 Google+ user

Citations

dimensions_citation
46 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
164 Mendeley
You are seeing a free-to-access but limited selection of the activity Altmetric has collected about this research output. Click here to find out more.
Title
Microbiological contamination of mobile phones of clinicians in intensive care units and neonatal care units in public hospitals in Kuwait
Published in
BMC Infectious Diseases, October 2015
DOI 10.1186/s12879-015-1172-9
Pubmed ID
Authors

Mohammed Heyba, Mohammad Ismaiel, Abdulrahman Alotaibi, Mohamed Mahmoud, Hussain Baqer, Ali Safar, Noura Al-Sweih, Abdullah Al-Taiar

Abstract

The objective of this study was to explore the prevalence of microbiological contamination of mobile phones that belong to clinicians in intensive care units (ICUs), pediatric intensive care units (PICUs), and neonatal care units (NCUs) in all public secondary care hospitals in Kuwait. The study also aimed to describe mobile phones disinfection practices as well as factors associated with mobile phone contamination. This is a cross-sectional study that included all clinicians with mobile phones in ICUs, PICUs, and NCUs in all secondary care hospitals in Kuwait. Samples for culture were collected from mobile phones and transported for microbiological identification using standard laboratory methods. Self-administered questionnaire was used to gather data on mobile phones disinfection practices. Out of 213 mobile phones, 157 (73.7 %, 95 % CI [67.2-79.5 %]) were colonized. Coagulase-negative staphylococci followed by Micrococcus were predominantly isolated from the mobile phones; 62.9 % and 28.6 % of all mobile phones, respectively. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Gram-negative bacteria were identified in 1.4 % and 7.0 % of the mobile phones, respectively. Sixty-eight clinicians (33.5 %) reported that they disinfected their mobile phones, with the majority disinfecting their mobile phones only when they get dirty. The only factor that was significantly associated with mobile phone contamination was whether a clinician has ever disinfected his/her mobile phone; adjusted odds ratio 2.42 (95 % CI [1.08-5.41], p-value = 0.031). The prevalence of mobile phone contamination is high in ICUs, PICUs, and NCUs in public secondary care hospitals in Kuwait. Although some of the isolated organisms can be considered non-pathogenic, various reports described their potential harm particularly among patients in ICU and NCU settings. Isolation of MRSA and Gram-negative bacteria from mobile phones of clinicians treating patients in high-risk healthcare settings is of a major concern, and calls for efforts to consider guidelines for mobile phone disinfection.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 26 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 164 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Norway 1 <1%
Unknown 163 99%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Bachelor 33 20%
Student > Master 17 10%
Student > Ph. D. Student 13 8%
Other 11 7%
Researcher 10 6%
Other 38 23%
Unknown 42 26%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 39 24%
Nursing and Health Professions 18 11%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 13 8%
Immunology and Microbiology 9 5%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 7 4%
Other 32 20%
Unknown 46 28%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 27. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 06 August 2020.
All research outputs
#1,409,633
of 25,085,910 outputs
Outputs from BMC Infectious Diseases
#332
of 8,439 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#20,213
of 285,157 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Infectious Diseases
#4
of 157 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,085,910 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 94th percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 8,439 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 10.7. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 96% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 285,157 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 92% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 157 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its contemporaries.