A review of published studies has found that handwashing with antibacterial soap produces statistically greater reductions in bacteria on the skin when compared to using non-antibacterial soap.
Researchers Donald Schaffner and Rebecca Montville of Rutgers University’s (New Jersey) Food Science Department conducted a quantitative analysis of existing data in order to determine if there was a difference in effectiveness between antibacterial and non-antibacterial soaps.
“A difference in the effectiveness of antimicrobial and non-antimicrobial soaps appears to exist and is repeatedly observed through a variety of analyses; antimicrobial soap is consistently and statistically always more effective than non-antimicrobial soap,” the researchers wrote.
The research article - A Meta-Analysis of the Published Literature on the Effectiveness of Antimicrobial Soap - reviewed a total of 25 publications containing 374 observations found to have examined use of both antibacterial and non-antibacterial soap in the same study.
“Although differences in efficacy between antimicrobial and non-antimicrobial soap may be relatively small, they do exist, and small but significant differences in pathogen levels on hands can have a significant effect on public health,” wrote Schaffner and Montville.
Added Dr Schaffner: “In addition to our findings on antimicrobial effectiveness, I was really struck by the similar behaviour of very different species of bacteria in response to antibacterial soap. In other words, we found that antibacterial soap did its job against a variety of bacteria, including E. coli and Staph.”
The research was published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Food Protection (Vol. 74, No. 11 2011, Pages 1875-1882). It was supported by the Topical Antimicrobial Coalition, which consists of the American Cleaning Institute and the Personal Care Products Council.