2022 Volume 21 Pages 68-74
Objective: To compare skin cleanliness after wiping with warm water versus antisepsis with alcohol to assess the effects of water baths on microorganism removal.
Methods: We recruited 24 healthy adults aged ≥ 18 years and applied the following interventions to three 7×6-cm experimental areas on their forearms: 1) wiping with warm water (40℃) twice using a different washcloth surface each time, 2) antisepsis with 83% ethanol, or 3) the same wiping procedure followed by antisepsis with 83% ethanol. We measured the adenosine triphosphate (ATP) bioluminescence using the total adenylate A3 (ATP+ADP+AMP) test to evaluate the skin’s cleanliness. We used analysis of covariance and Tukey’s honest significant difference test to compare the mean ATP levels between procedures after the interventions. ATP levels before the interventions were adjusted as covariates.
Results: We excluded one participant with outlier data at baseline and analyzed the data from 23 participants aged 19-22 years. ATP levels immediately after the interventions were related to the type of skin cleaning intervention (F=31.4, P<0.001). Multiple comparison tests showed that the ATP levels were significantly lower after the procedures that included skin wiping than after those of antisepsis only (P<0.001). ATP levels did not significantly differ between the wiped skin only and the wiped skin followed by antisepsis (P=0.31).
Conclusions: Wiping a small area of skin using a clean washcloth surface with warm water significantly reduced the number of microorganisms on the skin, suggesting that its temporal effect on microorganism removal could be equivalent to the temporal effect of antisepsis with alcohol.
