Table 1.

Characteristics of the 23 included studies in the systematic review.

Author (Year)	Country	Study Type	Healthcare Setting	Subjects and Samples (n); HCW Categories Sampled
Horikawa, 2001 [20]	Japan	Cross-sectional	Hospital	50 nurses
				150 samples
Perry, 2001 [26]	UK	Cross-sectional	Hospital wards: Renal Medicine, Renal Transplantation, Vascular Surgery, General Medicine and Obstetrics	57 nurses
				112 samples (56 pre-duty and 56 post-duty)
Osawa, 2003 [21]	Japan	Observational	Four hospital wards on two separate occasions (April 1998 and March 1999)	1.Seven physicians and seven nurses (nares, fingers, white coats, stethoscopes)
				2.Ten physicians and 14 nurses (fingers and white coats)
Ditchburn, 2006 [27]	Scotland	Cross-sectional	Hospital	40 physicians
Koh, 2009 [22]	Malaysia	Cross-sectional	Group 1 (physicians); hospitals	100 participants
			Group 2 (students); university	Physicians (50) and medical students (50)
Gaspard, 2009 [28]	France	Cross-sectional descriptive	Three geriatric long-term care facilities	512 total samples (256 samples (90 from nurses and 166 from care assistants) per zone)
Treakle, 2009 [8]	USA	Cross-sectional	Tertiary care hospital	148 participants
				38 students, 64 residents, 12 fellows and 31 attending physicians
McGovern, 2010 [9]	Ireland	Cross-sectional	Hospital	95 physicians
Uneke, 2010 [30]	Nigeria	Cross-sectional	University teaching hospital	103 physicians
Burden, 2011 [9]	USA	Prospective randomized controlled	University hospital	100 participants
				Group 1 (white coats) (n = 50)
				Group 2 (short-sleeved uniforms) (n = 50)
Wiener–Well, 2011 [23]	Israel	Cross-sectional	University hospital	135 participants
				238 samples
				75 nurses and 60 physicians
Banu, 2012 [24]	India	Cross-sectional	Tertiary medical hospital	100 participants
				83 students, 10 interns, 7 postgraduates
Bearman, 2012 [10]	USA	Prospective cross-over	ICU	Thirty-one HCWs were sampled weekly.
				Two thousand samples: 1019 study scrubs and 981 antimicrobial-impregnated scrubs (controls)
Morgan, 2012 [11]	USA	Prospective cohort	Six ICUs in a tertiary hospital	Sampling of hands and gowns reported as 585 HCW–patient interactions
				HCWs: nurses, therapists/physicians
Munoz–Price, 2012 [12]	USA	Cross-sectional	5 ICUs in a hospital	Total: 119
				White coats: 22
				Scrubs: 97
Roghmann, 2015 [3]	USA	Observational	13 community nursing homes	954 patient interactions
Williams, 2015 [14]	USA	Cross-sectional	5 ICUs	348 HCWs (252 nurses): 179 universal gowning/gloving and 169 usual care apparel
Anderson, 2017 [15]	USA	Randomized control	Medical and surgical ICUs of a tertiary care hospital	40 nurses
				2185 samples from clothing (120 shifts)
				Control group: standard cotton–polyester scrubs
				Scrub 1: scrubs with silver alloy embedded in fibers
				Scrub 2: scrubs with organosilane-based quaternary ammonium and hydrophobic fluoroacrylate copolymer emulsion
Pineles, 2017 [16]	USA	Multisite prospective observational	7 nursing homes	Interactions with MRSA-positive patients (n = 1543)
				Interactions with MRSA-negative patients (n = 1462)
Abu Radwan, 2019 [25]	Jordan	Cross-sectional	ICU—large military hospital	115 participants
				305 samples
				Nurses (58), physicians (20), resp. therapists (14), students (17), housekeepers (6)
Batista, 2019 [17]	Brazil	Cross-sectional	Hospital laboratories	100 college students
				300 samples
Jackson, 2019 [18]	USA	Cross-sectional	13 nursing home	Developmental set: 2200 interactions
			residents’ cohorts
			1.March 2012–May 2014	Validation set: 3011 interactions
			2.Sept.2012-Jan.2016 (VA)
Kanwar, 2019 [19]	USA	Cross-sectional	Acute care hospital	41 HCWs:
				25 (61%) nurses
				16 (39%) physicians

HCW: healthcare worker; ICU: intensive care unit; MRSA: methicillin-resistant S. aureus.