Effects of 4 hand-drying methods for removing bacteria from washed hands: A randomized trial

Objective: To evaluate the effects of 4 different drying methods to remove bacteria from washed hands, Subjects and Methods: One hundred adult volunteers participated in this ran domized prospective study. All bacterial counts were determined using a mod ified glove-juice sampling procedure. The difference was determined between the amounts of bacteria on hands artificially contaminated with the bacter ium Micrococcus luteus before washing with a nonantibacterial soap and afte r drying by 4 different methods (cloth towels accessed by a rotary dispense r, paper towels from a stack on the hand-washing sink, warm forced air from a mechanical hand-activated dryer, and spontaneous room air evaporation), The results were analyzed using a nonparametric analysis (the Friedman test ), By this method, changes in bacterial colony-forming unit values for each drying method were ranked for each subject. Results: The results for 99 subjects were evaluable, No statistically signi ficant differences were noted in the numbers of colony-forming units for ea ch drying method (P=.72). Conclusion: These data demonstrate no statistically significant differences in the efficiency of 4 different hand-drying methods for removing bacteria from washed hands.