Assessment of the awareness of healthcare personnel regarding the possible role of glucometers in transmitting healthcare-associated infections

Objective. To assess the awareness of healthcare personnel regarding the possible role of glucometers in transmitting healthcare-associated infections. Materials and methods. Physicians of different specialties, nurses, and patients with different abnormalities from various medical institutions were surveyed in the subjects of the Russian Federation. A total of 1371 people took part in the study on a voluntary basis. The results were processed by up-to-date statistical methods. Results. A complex sociomedical survey revealed varying awareness about the role of glucometers as transmitting factors for healthcare-associated infections among the healthcare personnel. The latter was found to consider the disinfection of the glucometer case ambiguously. 23% of the physicians were sure that the glucometer should be disinfected after each use. The majority (69%) of nurses denied that the glucometers might be contaminated with blood. A substantial proportion of patients were also unaware of this. 20% of the patients had given their individual glucometer to other people for use. Conclusion. The findings suggest that both the personnel and patients are little aware of the possible epidemiological risk of glucometers.

healthcare-associated infections, transfusion-transmitted infections, glucometer, epidemiological safety of blood glucose monitoring