Evaluation of the decontamination effectiveness of a steam mop for hospital floors

ABSTRACT Steam disinfection is a trusted method of decontamination and leave no residues, but yet has not been commonly applied for hospitals environment decontamination, hence we aimed to evaluate whether steam mop is an effective device for against pathogens on natural contaminated hospital floors (polyvinyl chloride, PVC) and artificially contaminated (Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Acinetobacter baumannii and Candida albicanson) PVC and cloth. The number of microorganisms was significantly reduced after the procedure (p < 0.05) on all hospital floors. Steaming for 15, 10 and 5 seconds could achieve full elimination of all high-, moderate-, and low concentration microorganisms on PVC, respectively, whereas 10, 5 and 10 seconds for cloth. High-, moderate-, and low concentrations microorganism on PVC were completely killed after the first, second and third routine mopping respectively. These results imply that steam mop could be an efficient and environment-friendly alternative for hospitals floors and cloth towels disinfection.