The nurse determines that the patient's wound may be infected. In order to perform a quantitative swab for wound culture, which of the following actions should the nurse take?

Question

a. Collect the superficial drainage.
b. Collect the culture before cleansing the wound.
c. Obtain a culturette tube and use sterile technique.
d. Use the same technique as for collecting an anaerobic culture.

Answer 1

C

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A The nurse never collects a wound culture sample from old or superficial drainage. Resident colonies of bacteria from the skin grow in superficial drainage and may not be the true causative organisms of a wound infection.
B The nurse should clean the wound first with normal saline to remove skin flora, before obtaining the culture.
C To collect a quantitative swab for a wound culture, the nurse uses a sterile swab from a culturette tube and sterile technique.
D The nurse uses different methods of specimen collection for aerobic or anaerobic organisms.