Objective: Our research was based in a medical center's Internal Medicine Intensive Care Unit (MICU) and Surgery Intensive Care Unit (SICU) located in central Taiwan. The research objective focus on the bioaerosols and their antibiotic-resistant characteristics in both MICU and SICU. Methods: Three bioaerosol samplers were utilized (Anderson six-stage, AGI-30, and BioSampler) for sampling before and during patient visiting. Upon acquisition of samples, they were inoculated and cultured on BBL (™)~Trypticase (™)~Soy Agar (with 5% Sheep Blood ) medium for growth. The bacterial colonies were later identified and analyzed for antibiotic-resistant characteristics via BD Phoenix (™)~medium ted microbial identification and susceptibility test analyzer. Results : Research results have showed from the bioaerosol samples acquired within the MICU that dominant concentration of bacteria and fungi were below cut off size of 3.3 urn, and they had high possibility to enter human lung's alveolar regions of the body, thereby causing opportunistic infections. The factor of season and air change rate per hour did not statistically associate with bioaerosol concentration (P>0.05) ; However, factor of patient visiting and temperature, relative humidity during sampling showed statistically agreement with bioaerosol concentration (P<0.001) . In terms of bacterial strain identification, Gram-positive bacteria were mainly isolated with risk group (RG) of II. As for antibiotic-resistant bacteria analysis of MICU, strains were identified 63.5 % that were resistant to National Health Insurance Administration (NHIA) designated first (17 types ) and second (18 types) line antibiotics. This phenomenon could very likely affect the medical staffs working within the hospital environment. Conclusions: As a result, recommendations for MICU ventilation designs should be carefully evaluated for the effectiveness of controlling nosocomial infections as well as proper implementation of personal protective equipment in order to reduce bioaerosol opportunistic infections and harmful exposure effects.
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