ArticleScientific reports2021
Mobile phones of paediatric hospital staff are never cleaned and commonly used in toilets with implications for healthcare nosocomial diseases.
Article in Scientific reports, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 30 citations in OpenAlex.
- Hospital-Associated Antimicrobial Resistant Bacteria on 95 Mobile Phones: An International Metagenomic "Phonome" Analysis.MicrobiologyOpen · 2026Article
- High efficiency of 70% isopropanol in reducing microbial contamination on healthcare workers' smartphone surfaces: a pre-post study in Peru.Antimicrobial resistance and infection control · 2026Article
- TONEFACT: Can even advanced hemorrhoids be treated without surgery? A paradigm shift in the management of hemorrhoids.World journal of gastrointestinal surgery · 2025Review
- Survey of Hand Hygiene, High-Touch Device Use, and Proper Habits of Health Care Workers for Infection Risk Prevention: Protocol for a Cross-Sectional Study.JMIR research protocols · 2025Article
- Ultraviolet-C-based sanitization is a cost-effective option for hospitals to manage health care-associated infection risks from high touch mobile phones.Frontiers in health services · 2024Article
- Ultrafast inactivation of SARS-CoV-2 by 254-nm UV-C irradiation on porous and non-porous media of medical interest using an omnidirectional chamber.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Ultraviolet-C-Based Mobile Phone Sanitisation for Global Public Health and Infection Control.Microorganisms · 2023Article
- Bacterial Contamination of Healthcare Students' Mobile Phones: Impact of Specific Absorption Rate (SAR), Users' Demographics and Device Characteristics on Bacterial Load.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Smartphone and Mobile App Use Among Physicians in Clinical Practice: Scoping Review.JMIR mHealth and uHealth · 2023Article
- Article
- Mobile Phones: Reservoirs of Resistant Bacteria during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.Microorganisms · 2023Article
- Fungal contamination of medical students' mobile phones from the University of Belgrade, Serbia: a cross-sectional study.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Mobile phones are hazardous microbial platforms warranting robust public health and biosecurity protocols.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Metagenomic Sequencing and Reverse Transcriptase PCR Reveal That Mobile Phones and Environmental Surfaces Are Reservoirs of Multidrug-Resistant Superbugs and SARS-CoV-2.Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2022Article
- The Associations between Knowledge and Behaviours Related to Touch Screens and Microbiological Threats among IT Students'.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
- A pilot metagenomic study reveals that community derived mobile phones are reservoirs of viable pathogenic microbes.Scientific reports · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
An ever-increasing number of medical staff use mobile phones as a work aid, yet this may pose nosocomial diseases. To assess and report via a survey the handling practices and the use of phones by paediatric wards healthcare workers. 165 paediatric healthcare workers and staff filled in a questionnaire consisting of 14 questions (including categorical, ordinal and numerical data). Analysis of categorical data used non-parametric techniques such as the Chi-squared test. Although 98% of respondents (165 in total) report that their phones may be contaminated, 56% have never cleaned their devices. Of the respondents that clean their devices, 10% (17/165) had done so with alcohol swabs or disinfectant within that day or week; and an additional 12% respondents (20/165) within that month. Of concern, 52% (86/165) of the respondents use their phones in the bathroom, emphasising the unhygienic environments in which mobile phones/smartphones are constantly used. Disinfecting phones is a practice that only a minority of healthcare workers undertake appropriately. Mobile phones, present in billions globally, are therefore Trojan Horses if contaminated with microbes and potentially contributing to the spread and propagation of micro-organisms as per the rapid spread of SARS-CoV-2 virus in the world.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.