Is there a connection between increased infection from nurses wearing artificial nails?
Nurses with acrylic fingernails are more likely to have harmful bacteria on their nails than other nurses, even after hand washing. The use of artificial nails by nurses may increase the chances that harmful bacteria will be transmitted to patients and cause infection. The use of artificial acrylic fingernails has become more fashionable and more and more nurses have begun wearing them. Because hand-to-hand transmission is a major source of bacterial infection, the researchers speculated that acrylic nails might raise bacterial transmission risks between nurses and patients. Before hand washing, 73% of nurses with artificial nails compared with only 32% of nurses without had harmful bacteria present on their nails. These numbers dropped to 68% and 26%, respectively, after the nurses washed their hands.
