Bacterial Contamination of Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICU) and Determination of Antibiotics Resistance Patterns in Isolated Bacteria in Hamadan Hospitals

Background: Many reports from all over the world indicade that multi-drug resistance in nosocomial organisms are increasing.

Objectives: The objectives of this study were determination of antibiotics resistance patterns in bacteria isolated from neonatal intensive care units (NICU) in Hamadan hospitals, west of Iran.

Methods: In this dtudy, 182 samples were randomly collected from different area including devices, apparatus, physical surfaces and staffs^, uniforms. The samples were inoculated in EMB and Blood agar by wet swabs and transferred to medical laboratory for identification. 140 strains were selected and cultured on Mulerhinton agar for antibiogram tests by Kirby-bauer method. The antibiotics disks were consisted of : Erythromycin, vancomycin, tetracycline, ceftriaxone, cefataxime, penicillin, carbapenem, ampicillin, methicillin, amikacin, gentamicin, sulfamethoxazole, nalidixic acid and ciprofloxacin.

Results: The average rate of bacterial contamination in NICU was 42.9%. The most contaminated parts, were the staffs^, uniforms (70.3%) and physical surfaces (58.4%) respectively. The most bacteria isolated were as follow: Staphylococcus epidemidis, Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus faecium, Pseudomonas aeroginosa, E.coli, Klebsiella, Enterobacter, Proteus, Acenetobacter. In this study, many different antibiotics resistance patterns were obtained for strains isolated from intensive care units. In total, gram positive bactera showed more resistance patterns, rather than gram negative bacteria. More than 80% of gram positive bacteria were resistant to penicillin, ampicillin, tetracycline and gentamicin.

Conclusion: Our results showed the high drug resistance in strains isolated from NICU and considerable bacterial contamination, it seems that sterilization and disinfection methods in hospitals were not performed correctly and it should be controlled regularly by related authorities.