Is it true all nurses get MRSA or C-DIFF?

Published

I was at work last night and the nurses were talking as if it was normal.

I love working in healthcare, but as you know accidents happen, like urine splashing on you/clothing, someone spitting on you or rushing in without gloves during an emergency.

I'm starting nursing school next year but seriously thinking its not for me.

They say, that all nurses get it? Is it true?

I wouldn't want to expose this to my family or other patients that why I practice good hygiene. Any insight?

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in ER.

It seems like the majority of people in the community have MRSA now a days.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Public Health.

Possibly most people are colonized but not "infected" per sé. I don't know anyone from my 6 years in the field that has gotten sick though.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Medical and general practice now LTC.

I have been nursing since 1986 and never had C-diff. If proper precautions taken you should be ok. MRSA is very much a community thing and you have more risk in shops than anywhere else of coming into contact with it

Up Vote Up Vote ×

Never had C Diff, and to my knowledge don't have MRSA.

I do have a bit of a cold, though...

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in ICU, LTACH, Internal Medicine.

Most of of us have C. Diff. living in our bowels as part of flora. See here, for example:

CID

51% of LTC residents have it, without problems. It is named "asymptomatic carriage".

Staph aureus in general colonizes nasopharynx and skin of 25-30% of healthy people, but only 1-2% of general healthy popilation carry MRSA.

Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) (the numbers belong to CDC).

Asymptomatic carriers are NOT sick, but they MAY become sick with the organism they carry if they are subjected to 1) significant depression of their local or general immune responce and/or 2) destruction of the majority of their common body flora, which is not MDRO, by wide-spectrum antibiotics. They may transfer their carried organisms to other people but if these people do not belong to the two categories above, they will became carriers, too, at the worst case scenatio. I did not find how long every episode of carriage usually lasts, but counting that our bodies' healthy flora is very resilient, I think that one episode of MRSA carriage won't last longer than a few weeks with normal body hygiene.

There are minor variations of the theme but that is how it goes, in general terms. Healthy people, even babies, have normal body flora which protects them from colonization. But, if one works in a place with C. Diff. and MRSA patients at every corner and has at home a person who, for example, goes through chemo, or recent transplant recipient, I would not go kiss this person hello while still in my scrubs and before washing hands and face. This is leaving alone the disgusting factor.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Nasty sammiches and Dilaudid.

Yep, all nurses, every...single...one... will get MRSA and C. Diff so run now while you can...

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Hospice.

We don't live in bubbles.

The media has everyone paranoid about "super germs" in hospital settings, but you have a greater chance of getting community acquired MRSA now. Also, many people, including health care workers, can be colonized without danger of passing the bug around.

As for c. diff? It's part of gut flora, and is generally a problem with a debilitated, immune suppressed population. The best way to prevent the spread is...good hand washing.

If you forget basic infection control methods and become paranoid over every germ you may come in contact with, you aren't going to last very long in Nursing. I've been doing this for 36 years, 26 of them in acute care, Med Surg settings. My family has never become ill from something I might have been exposed to. And neither have I.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Palliative, Onc, Med-Surg, Home Hospice.

You do realize you get exposed to MRSA in the general public, right? As far as c-diff, wash your hands. No hand sanitizer

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in ICU Stepdown.

I was a CNA at a place where it seemed like residents had C Diff every week... I've never had C Diff and I don't believe I have MRSA.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Psychiatry, Forensics, Addictions.

I have MRSA. My ID doctor said that about 85% of healthcare workers are carriers. The difference between me and the carriers is that I had symptoms.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in School Nursing, Hospice,Med-Surg.

I got c. Diff when I was a stay at home mom after years of being out of the work force. So, technically, I'm a nurse with c Diff but definitely didn't get it from a patient.

I got it from being given too many antibiotics, my gut getting all jacked up, becoming dehydrated and hypokalemic and being hospitalized 3 times. On hospitalization #3, my c Diff test finally came back positive.

All I can say is, that's one of the most miserable things I've ever been through. I know there are worse things to have but it's just not fun.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
+ Join the Discussion