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. 2012 Nov 8;1(1):34.
doi: 10.1186/2047-2994-1-34.

Self-sampling is appropriate for detection of Staphylococcus aureus: a validation study

Brigitte Agl van Cleef  1 , Miranda van Rijen, Marianne Ferket, Jan Ajw Kluytmans
Affiliations

Self-sampling is appropriate for detection of Staphylococcus aureus: a validation study

Brigitte Agl van Cleef et al. Antimicrob Resist Infect Control. .

Abstract

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.

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