Self-sampling is appropriate for detection of Staphylococcus aureus: a validation study

• Published in: Antimicrobial resistance & infection control 2012-11, Vol.1 (1), p.34-34
• Main Authors: van Cleef, Brigitte Agl, van Rijen, Miranda, Ferket, Marianne, Kluytmans, Jan Ajw
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: MRSA; Self-sampling; Staphylcococcus aureus; Staphylococcus aureus; Staphylococcus aureus infections; Validation
• ISSN: 2047-2994; 2047-2994
• DOI: 10.1186/2047-2994-1-34

Studies frequently use nasal swabs to determine Staphylococcus aureus carriage. Self-sampling would be extremely useful in an outhospital research situation, but has not been studied in a healthy population. We studied the similarity of self-samples and investigator-samples in nares and pharynxes of healthy study subjects (hospital staff) in the Netherlands. One hundred and five nursing personnel members were sampled 4 times in random order after viewing an instruction paper: 1) nasal self-sample, 2) pharyngeal self-sample, 3) nasal investigator-sample, and 4) pharyngeal investigator-sample. For nasal samples, agreement is 93% with a kappa coefficient of 0.85 (95% CI 0.74-0.96), indicating excellent agreement, for pharyngeal samples agreement is 83% and the kappa coefficient is 0.60 (95% CI 0.43-0.76), indicating good agreement. In both sampling sites self-samples even detected more S. aureus than investigator-samples. This means that self-samples are appropriate for detection of Staphylococcus aureus and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.