Length of stay in recovery room:: a nosocomial risk?

Objective - To assess cross contamination for patients at the time of their stay in the recovery room (RR). Study design - Prospective study. Patients and methods - A prospective survey over 3 weeks with 75 adult patients admitted to RR after thoracic or neck surgery. Samples for bacterial analysis were systematically taken from all patients before they left the operating theatre and just before discharge of RR (nose-throat and skin adjacent to the surgical wound). During this period, hand's health care workers (HCW) and environmental surfaces were sampled. Results - There were 3 groups of patients : endoscopy (41%), thoracic surgery (39%). And thyroidectomy (20%), 392 samples were analysed. Potentially pathogenic floras were found on the admission for 25 patients and at discharge for 31 patients. A pathogenic flora was detected at discharge in 13 patients, whereas none was found at admission in RR. These patients were principally in the thyroidectomy group and their stay in RR was longer than 20 minutes. There is no significant difference concerning the nosocomial risk between 3 groups. Pathogenic flora was found in 19% of HCW (8 of 42). Conclusion - Cross contamination can exist in recovery room and educative measures are to be taken regarding handwhashing, isolation precautions and environmental cleaning. (C) 2002 Editions scientifiques et medicales Elsevier SAS. All rights reserved.