Published in:
Open Access 01-12-2012 | Research
Self-sampling is appropriate for detection of Staphylococcus aureus: a validation study
Published in: Antimicrobial Resistance & Infection Control | Issue 1/2012
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Background
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.
Methods
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.
Results
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.
Conclusions
This means that self-samples are appropriate for detection of Staphylococcus aureus and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.