Background and aims: In clinics, nurses spend most of their working shifts « hours with different if they do not follow the general principals of prevention, they will have greater share of transmission of infection to patients and others. Therefore, the aim of this study is determining the extent of contamination in nursing staff's jewelry and their level of awareness of using these objects in Shahrekord medical university hospitals.
Methods: This study is a analytical discriptive study which was done on 220 nurses, who were selected by cluster sampling, in Shahrekord hospitals. For data collection, a questionnaire included demographic information and assessment of the level of awareness about the terms of using jewelries in clinical environments was used. The reliability of this questionnaire was obtained 0.86 based on Cronbach's alpha, and confirmed. After that, the nurses' palms and the jewelry used by them were sampled and cultured in vitro. After 48-72 hours, the samples were examined and the data were analyzed by the use of SPSS Software and descriptive and inferential statistical techniques such as Cross tab.
Results: The results of this study revealed that only 7 (3.2%) of the participants did not use jewelry in the workplace. In the in vitro cultures from the jewelry used by participants in the study, Staphylococcus Epidermidis had the highest frequency and candida albikans had the lowest frequency. Also, the materials used in watches had a significant role in the level of microbial contamination but this relationship is not seen in other jewelry. (r=259.84, P=0.000). There is a relationship between the gender of the participants and the level of microbial contamination in the watches. (r=24.913, P=0.000) This relationship is more in women comparing with men. Although more than 75% of nurses have a good awareness of the abandonment of using the jewelry in clinical areas, yet the use of jewelry is at a considerable extent.
Conclusion: The results of this study show that the hands and various types of jewelry used by nurses are contamined with various pathogens, while applying the defined professional principles for controlling infection is the most important principles of clinical programs. Therefore, the results of this study can be used by the managers of the hospitals to emphasize more desirably on the compliance of the rules and regulations for controlling of infection in clinical environments
