Determination of Pathogenic Microorganisms on the Caps of Personnel in a Tertiary Care Hospital

Introduction: h ealthcare-Associated Infections (HAIs) are the most frequent adverse event during the provision of clinical care and are a public health problem worldwide, which can occur endogenously and exogenously. The cap is an exogenous cause. Therefore, our purpose is to determine the presence of pathogenic microorganisms on nurses' caps.Methods: a cross-sectional study was carried out; the unit of analysis was the caps. Inclusion criteria: caps of the outpatient staff of a tertiary care hospital. The sample consisted of 31 caps before taking the sample, informed consent and a questionnaire with 10 items were applied.Results: the main pathogenic microorganism found in the caps was: E. Coli with 19,4 %, Staphylococcus SPP 12,9 %, Salmonella 6,4 % and unidentified enterobacteria 6,4 %. 13 % reported that they do not usually wash the cap and of the 87% who said that they wash it, the average time to sanitize the cap was 1.8 weeks.Conclusions: the main type of microorganisms found in our study differs from other studies. The cap is a means of transporting pathogenic microorganisms that can favor the increase of HAIs. It is a little-studied topic, so we consider that it is necessary to carry out more research on this subject, with the purpose of evaluating the use of the cap, and of decreasing the prevalence of HAIs.