%0 Journal Article
%T Self-sampling is appropriate for detection of Staphylococcus aureus: a validation study
%A van Cleef Brigitte AGL
%A van Rijen Miranda
%A Ferket Marianne
%A Kluytmans Jan AJW
%J Antimicrobial Resistance and Infection Control
%D 2012
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/2047-2994-1-34
%X 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.
%K Self-sampling
%K Staphylcococcus aureus
%K MRSA
%K Validation
%U http://www.aricjournal.com/content/1/1/34