Nosocomial infections at Clinical Centre in Kragujevac: Prevalence study

Abstract

Nosocomial infections (NIs) are a serious health problem in hospitals worldwide and are followed by a series of consequences, medical, judicial, ethical and economic. The main aim of this study was to assess the magnitude of NIs at the Clinical Centre in Kragujevac. A prevalence study of nosocomial infections was conducted from 16th till 20th May, 2005, within Second National Prevalence Study of Nis in the Republic of Serbia. 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 > or = 65 years (p < 0.05), with longer hospitalization > or = 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). 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.