Summary Background Phone hygiene is increasingly recognized in infection prevention. We aimed to explore the beliefs, attitudes and performance of phone hygiene amongst healthcare workers (HCWs) in the major operation theatre (MOT) complex of a Singapore tertiary acute care hospital. We also monitored the impact of phone hygiene stations, introduced to improve phone hygiene. Methods We sent two online anonymous surveys to the Departments of Anaesthesia and MOT Nurses one month before and after we set up phone hygiene stations. Four phone hygiene stations displaying visual phone hygiene reminders and Mikrozid® sensitive wipes were set up at MOT entrances. Results A total of 205 and 91 HCWs responded to the first and second surveys respectively. In the first survey, 11.5% cleaned their phones daily while 9.4% never cleaned their phones. These changed to 16.9% and 3.8% respectively after the introduction of phone hygiene stations. 80.0% in the first survey said they would clean their phones more often if there were a readily accessible disinfection method in the MOT. A majority believed phones are a source of healthcare associated infection. Common reasons for not cleaning phones were ‘lack of available resources’ and ‘I don't think about it.’ Senior doctors were the least compliant to phone hygiene. Conclusion Phone hygiene is easily overlooked during our busy workday. Besides increasing awareness of phone hygiene, having a readily available disinfection method in the MOT complex is important to improve phone hygiene. We suggest HCWs clean their phones before entering and/or after leaving the MOT daily.

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Introduction. We explored how ethnicity affects the risk of postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV) and established the correlation of suggested risk factors of PONV in the multiethnic population of Singapore. Methods. 785 patients who underwent orthopaedic surgery were recruited. These comprised 619 Chinese (78.9%), 76 Malay (9.7%), 68 Indian (8.7%), and 22 other (2.8%) cases. The presence of possible risk factors of PONV and nausea and/or vomiting within 24 h after surgery was studied. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed. Results. The incidence of PONV was 33.2% (261 patients). There was no statistically significant difference of PONV incidence between Chinese, Malay, and Indian cases (34.6% versus 34.2% versus 29.4%, = 0.695). Indian females younger than 50 years were found to have a higher incidence of vomiting ( = 0.02). The significant risk factors for this population include females, use of nitrous oxide, and a history of PONV. Conclusion. In the groups studied, ethnicity is not a significant risk factor for PONV except for young Indian females who have a higher risk of postoperative vomiting. We suggest the selective usage of antiemetic for young Indian females as prophylaxis and avoiding nitrous oxide use in high-risk patients.