Aim:

In this study, the role the automated teller machines play in bacterial and fungal contami-nation is investigated and it was aimed to investigate whether there is a difference between the automated teller machines in the hospital campus and out of the hospital campus and the auto-mated teller machines used more frequently and hardly.

Material& Methods:

The study was made on the automated teller machines in Sıhhiye and Kızılay, which are the central parts of Ankara, from November 2008 to March 2009. Both inside and outside of the hospital campus, 20 automated teller machines were chosen and swabbed in a weekday and at the weekend to investigate the effect of the frequency of use so totally 80 auto-mated teller machines were swabbed. In the same day, the samples were inoculated on the blood agar, Saboraud’s Dextrose Agar (SDA) and Eosin Methylene Blue (EMB) agar and the colonization of bacteria and fungi was observed. The colonies that had seen on the Petri dishes were isolated and identified. Chi-square, Mann-Whitney U and Wilcoxon tests were used as the statistical tests and Bonferroni correction was made.

Results:

Seventy-eight out of 80 samples were colonized. Colonized microorganisms are Mi-crococcus spp, Coagulase Negative Staphylococci, Methicilline-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), Methicilline-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA), Streptococcus pneumoniae, and other Streptococcus spp, Neisseria spp, Gram positive rods, Gram positive spore forming rods, Gram negative enteric rods, non-fermentative Gram negative rods; yeast and mould species. There was no significantly difference in the number of microorganism types between the auto-mated teller machines in the hospital campus and out of the campus also the ones used more frequently and hardly(p>0,0125).

Conclusion:

Automated teller machines are contaminated by bacteria and fungi and so are the potentially pathogen species. Therefore the automated teller machines can play a role in spread of microorganisms and are important to public health. For prevention from the possible conta-gion, cleaning the automated teller machines regularly and personal hand hygiene are important.

Keywords: Automated Teller Machine, Microbial Contamination, Hospital, Densely-Used, Hand Con-tamination