title: Self-sampling is appropriate for detection of Staphylococcus aureus: a validation study.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Studies frequently use nasal swabs to determine Staphylococcus aureus carriage. Self-sampling would be extremely useful in an outhospital research situation, but has not been studied in a healthy population. We studied the similarity of self-samples and investigator-samples in nares and pharynxes of healthy study subjects (hospital staff) in the Netherlands.
  
  
  METHODS
  One hundred and five nursing personnel members were sampled 4 times in random order after viewing an instruction paper: 1) nasal self-sample, 2) pharyngeal self-sample, 3) nasal investigator-sample, and 4) pharyngeal investigator-sample.
  
  
  RESULTS
  For nasal samples, agreement is 93% with a kappa coefficient of 0.85 (95% CI 0.74-0.96), indicating excellent agreement, for pharyngeal samples agreement is 83% and the kappa coefficient is 0.60 (95% CI 0.43-0.76), indicating good agreement. In both sampling sites self-samples even detected more S. aureus than investigator-samples.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This means that self-samples are appropriate for detection of Staphylococcus aureus and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.
authors.affiliation: RIVM National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, Centre for Infectious Disease Control Netherlands, P,O, Box 1, 3720 BA, Bilthoven, the Netherlands. brigitte.van.cleef@rivm.nl.
authors.forename: Brigitte Agl
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: van Cleef
authors.forename: Miranda
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: van Rijen
authors.forename: Marianne
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ferket
authors.forename: Jan Ajw
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Kluytmans