Nosocomial infections at clinical centre in Kragujevac-Prevalence study

Abstract

Introduction: Nosocomial infections (NIs) are a serious health problem in hospitals worldwide and are followed by a series of consequences, medical, judicial, ethical and economic. Objective: The main aim of this study was to assess the magnitude of NIs at the Clinical Centre in Kragujevac. Methods: A prevalence study of nosocomial infections was conducted from 16th till 20th May, 2005, within Second National Prevalence Study of Niš in the Republic of Serbia.& Results The study included 866 patients. 40 patients had a NI, thus the prevalence of patients with NIs and prevalence of NIs was the same, 4.6%. Among NIs, the most frequent were urinary infections (45.0%) followed by surgical-site infections (17.5%), skin and soft tissue infections (15%) and pneumonia (12.5%). The rate of NIs was highest at departments of orthopaedics and traumatological surgery (12.0%), followed by intensive care units (8.0%). Overall, 67.5% (27/40) NIs were culture-proved; the leading pathogens were Escherichia coli (40.0%), followed by gram-negative bacteria (Pseudomonas species, Proteus mirabilis, Enterobacteriaceae with equal frequency of 8.0%). Nosocomial infections were significantly more frequent in patients aged ≥65 years (p<0.05), with longer hospitalization ≥8 days (p<0.00), in intensive care patients (p<0.05), patients with an intravenous catheter (p<0.00), urinary catheter (p<0.00), and those under antibiotic therapy (p<0.00). Conclusion: This study showed that the prevalence of nosocomial infections in our hospital is similar to the prevalence in the developed countries. The study of prevalence provides a prompt insight into basic epidemiological and ethiological characteristics of nosocomial infections, hence identification of hospital priorities and the need to undertake appropriate prevention measures.