Home-based Wound Self-Swabbing

The rapid national rollout of COVID-19 self-swabbing provides a precedent supporting the feasibility of community self-sampling approaches. The researcher uses a checklist to record whether participants can follow each instruction step unaided while maintaining swab sterility. The self-swabbing kit provided at discharge contains two culture swabs, two ampoules of saline, three alcohol-free hand wipes, gauze, a return envelope with rigid packaging, two labels and a pen. Poor community access to wound swabbing can delay antibiotic prescribing or lead to inappropriate empirical prescribing, which may worsen complications and undermine antimicrobial stewardship. After self-swabbing, samples are couriered to an independent NHS-used laboratory in Basildon for bacterial culture and antimicrobial susceptibility testing. Participants perform self-swabbing at home within 1 to 21 days after discharge, during a prearranged appointment observed remotely by a researcher via Microsoft Teams.