ICU Use of Gowns and Gloves Reduces Risk of MRSA Infection, Study Suggests

The use of disposable gowns and gloves by health care workers when entering all patient rooms in an ICU, rather than only those on standard isolation protocol, reduces a patient's chances of acquiring some bacteria-caused illnesses, though not all, according to a new report.

Led by researchers from the University of Maryland and Yale New Haven Health System Center for Healthcare Solutions, the study looked at 20 medical and surgical ICUs across 15 states.

Those ICUs included in the study were randomly assigned whether or not they would be tasked with wearing gowns and gloves in every room. In total, nearly 92,000 cultures from more than 26,000 patients taken during a nine-month period were examined.

The results showed that the practice of wearing disposable gowns and gloves in every patients' room in the ICU reduced patient acquisition of MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) by 40 percent, though no notable drop was detected in the case of VRE (vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus), another common bacteria.

"We set out to find whether having [health care] workers wear gowns and gloves for all ICU patient contact could decrease the acquisition of antibiotic-resistant bacteria such as MRSA without causing any harm to the patient -- and the answer was yes," said the study's principal investigator, Dr. Anthony D. Harris, a professor of epidemiology and public health at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

The study also examined whether the use of contact precautions like gowns and gloves cause increased pressure sores, falls or any other type of unintended injury to patients. No such link was detected, according to the study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

A total of 99,000 people die every year in the US due to hospital-acquired infections (HAIs), estimates published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention state. According to a study published a month ago in JAMA Internal Medicine, some $9.8 billion is spent annually in order to treat the five most common infections picked up in hospitals nationwide.

Beverly Belton, a co-author from Yale, said studies like these should help guide efforts to reduce these numbers.

"Based on the results of this study, it would be prudent for ICUs to consider adoption of universal gowning and gloving policies on intensive care units at highest risk for MRSA infections," she said, "regardless of whether patients have been positively cultured."