title: Prevalence of nosocomial infections in representative German hospitals.
abstract: The nosocomial infection (NI) rate in German hospitals was studied in order to create reference data for comparison in hospitals where ongoing surveillance is impossible. The study was designed as a one-day prevalence study. Patients in 72 selected hospitals (inclusion criteria: acute care hospitals with departments for general medicine, surgery, obstetrics/gynaecology) were examined by four external investigators (physicians trained and validated in the diagnosis of NI). A total of 14,996 patients were studied. The overall prevalence rate was 3.5% (CI 3.1-3.9) with a variation of 0-8.9% between hospitals. The commonest NI were: urinary tract infection (42.1%), lower respiratory tract infection (20.6%), surgical site infections (15.8%) and primary sepsis (8.3%). The highest prevalence rate (15.3%) was found in intensive care ward patients, followed by surgery (3.8%), general medicine (3.0%) and gynaecology/obstetrics (1.4%). The infection rate varied significantly with hospital size. A microbiology laboratory report was only available for 56.5% of patients thought to have an NI, and there were remarkable differences between hospitals with and without an on-site microbiology laboratory. Because of this and other methodological reasons the NI prevalence rates reported here may represent the absolute minimum of nosocomially infected patients in Germany.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Hygiene, Free University Berlin.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Gastmeier
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Kampf
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Wischnewski
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hauer
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Schulgen
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Schumacher
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Daschner
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Rüden
mesh_terms: D003428:Cross Infection / Q000453:epidemiology*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005858:Germany / Q000453:epidemiology; D006276:Health Facility Size; D006761:Hospitals / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D007362:Intensive Care Units / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015995:Prevalence; D012141:Respiratory Tract Infections / Q000453:epidemiology; D018805:Sepsis / Q000453:epidemiology; D013530:Surgical Wound Infection / Q000453:epidemiology; D014552:Urinary Tract Infections / Q000453:epidemiology