Hospital Acquired Infection in a Tertiary Military Hospital in Dhaka, Bangladesh

Abstract

This descriptive cross sectional study was conducted among the surgical patients of all age and sex at Combined Military Hospital, Dhaka, Bangladesh. The data were collected from 5 April 2015 to 12 April 2015 with a view to find out the prevalence of hospital acquired infection (HAI), its risk factors and pattern of organisms responsible. A total of 360 respondents happened to be available in different surgical wards during data collection period and 30 respondents developed HAI, thus a prevalence rate of 8.33% was yielded. The mean age of the respondents was 36.89 years with standard deviation ± 14.54 years. Among the HAI cases, 53.33% were surgical site infections and 50% were caused by Escherichia Coli. The study found that frequency of HAI depended on patients’ performance status: among 40% who required assistance for most activities, who had visitors more than 3 per day (81.3%), who had underlying illness like diabetes mellitus (25%), who had invasive devices (9.5%), who were admitted in ICU (12.9%), who received immunosuppressive therapy (23.5%), who had immunosuppressive conditions (28.1%), who had emergency operation (34.8%), and who had undergone general surgery (19.0%). Findings suggest that association between HAI and number of visitors, admission in ICU, immunosuppressive conditions, use of immunosuppressive therapy, use of invasive devices, and different functional state of patients were statistically significant (p<0.05). Findings of this study suggest that measures need to be taken at increasing awareness of hospital staffs, formulation of policy on use and duration of use of invasive devices, establishing a surveillance system and controlling visitors for effective control of HAI. The researcher suggests further detail study with large sample involving multiple hospitals to get more accurate picture on HAI.