Nasal Carriage Rate Antimicrobial Susceptibility Pattern Of S.aurues And Methicillin Resistant S.aurues Among Health Care Workers And Their Knowledge Attitude And Practice Regarding This Organism At Zewditu Memorial Hospital
Background: S.aurues is gram-positive coccus which is a normal flora of the skin and nose ofthe healthy population. However it can cause different types of infections ranging from minorskin infections to life threatening conditions such as septicemia, pneumonia, endocarditis,rnmeningitis and osteomyelitis. rnObjective: The objective of this study was to determine the nasal carriage rate and antibioticsusceptibility profile of S.aurues and methicillin resistant S.aureus among health care workers rnand their knowledge, attitude and practice regarding methicillin resistant S.aureus at ZewdituMemorialHospital. rnMethods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on178 HCWs at Zewditu memorial hospital inrncity of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from February to May 2021 on isolation of nasal S.aurues andrndetermination of antimicrobial resistance profile. Standard microbiological methods were used tornisolate and identify S.aurues from nasal swabs obtained from study subjects. Susceptibilityprofiles to different antibiotics was done using Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion method. Data onsocio-demographic factors and knowledge, attitude and practice related data were collected usingwell-structured questionnaires. The collected data was organized and tabulated using SPSSsoftware (version26). rnResults: Prevalence of S. aureus and MRSA in this study were 12.9% (23/178) and 7.9%(14/178) respectively. Rate of MRSA among S. aureus was 60.9 % (14/23). In our study, MRSAcarriage was higher among nurse professionals (11.1%) and surgical ward (28.6%). None of theMRSA isolates were sensitive to penicillin. However, low resistance was observed forrnchloramphenicol and clindamycin. Among 178 participants, 150 (84.3%) were within adequateknowledge range while, 28(15.7%) of the participants had showed poor knowledge aboutMRSA. Concerning practice of HCWs; only half (97(54.5%)) of them had good practice onprevention of MRSA whereas; 81(45.5%) of the participants had poor practice. rnConclusion: In this study, the overall prevalence of MRSA was 7.9%. Clindamycin andrnchloramphenicol were preferable antimicrobials for treatment of MRSA and S. aureus. Thisstudy had also showed limited KAP of HCWs regarding MRSA prevention; therefore,continuous and effective education should be provided for HCWs.