Volume 15, Number 9—September 2009 Nurses’ Contacts and
Potential for Infectious Disease Transmission Nurses’ contacts
with potentially infectious persons probably place them at
higher risk than the general population for infectious diseases.
During an influenza pandemic, illness among nurses might result
in staff shortage. We aimed to show the value of individual data
from the healthcare sector for mathematical modeling of
infectious disease transmission. Using a paper diary approach,
we compared nurses’ daily contacts (2-way conversation with >2
words or skin-to-skin contact) with those of matched controls
from a representative population survey. Nurses (n = 129)
reported a median of 40 contacts (85% work related), and
controls (n = 129) reported 12 contacts (33% work related). For
nurses, 51% of work-related contacts were with patients (74%
involving skin-to-skin contact, and 63% lasted <15 minutes); 40%
were with staff members (29% and 36%, respectively). Our data,
used with simulation models, can help pr