Objectives: It was aimed to detect the prevalence of nasal carriage of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and Coagulase negative staphylococci (CoNS) of the healthcare personnel in our hospital and if any relation with slime production and methicillin resistance in these strains.

Materials and Methods: Specimens for culture were collected from the anterior nares from healthcare personnel with sterile cotton swabs. The nasal swabs were cultured on 5% sheep blood agar plates and incubated at 37ºC for 24-hour. Coagulase tests were performed for the strains identified with colony morphology and Gram staining. The susceptibilities of the isolates to oxacillin were determined by the disk diffusion method according to National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards. Slime production was investigated by Congo Red Agar plate method.

Results: When thirty-seven (31.4%) of the isolated strains were S. aureus, and 35.1% of these were methicillin-resistant, methicillin resistance was 59.3% for CoNS (p=0.015). Slime positivity was 73% at S. aureus strains, and 65.4% for CoNS (p=0.4). It was detected a risk factor that studying at surgical departments (%23.1 vs. %76.9, r= 0.48, %95 CI: 0.196-0.768, p=0.002).

Conclusion: The potential of slime production was observed higher at MR staphylococci. No methicillin resitancy was observed at slime produced species, but it was observed a high prevalence rate of MRSA carriage. Thus, it proposes that it needs to continuing education for hospital infection control and applicable and permanent solution for eradication of MRSA. ©2005, Fırat Üniversitesi, Tıp Fakültesi