title: [Higher risk for health care associated infections in hospitalized children with special health needs].
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Nosocomial infections (NIs) represent an important public health issue, being associated with high morbidity, mortality and costs.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To identify risk factors of NIs in a cohort of hospitalized pediatric patients, with emphasis in children with special health care needs (CSHCN).
  
  
  METHODS
  We studied patients hospitalized in Sótero del Río Pediatric Hospital at Santiago-Chile, between September and December, 2009. Relative Risk (RR) was calculated between CSHCN-3 (children attended by three or more health care professionals) versus non CSHCN-3, and between children with medical complexity (CMC) versus non CMC, using log-binomial models.
  
  
  RESULTS
  920 patients were included. Prevalence of NIs was 12.7%. The most frequent diagnoses were gastrointestinal and respiratory viral infections. Both crude and adjusted by confounders (age and sex), CSHCN-3 and CMC presented significantly higher risk of NIs compared to patients without these conditions (RR 2.91 and RR 2.16, respectively).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  CSHCN-3 and CMC represent independent conditions associated to a 2-3 fold risk of NIs.
authors.forename: Juan C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Flores
authors.forename: Pablo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Riquelme
authors.forename: Jaime
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cerda
authors.forename: Daniela
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Carrillo
authors.forename: M Soledad
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Matus
authors.forename: Gabriela
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Araya
authors.forename: Tamara
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Viviani
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002673:Child, Hospitalized / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002677:Chile / Q000453:epidemiology; D002908:Chronic Disease; D003428:Cross Infection / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D015995:Prevalence; D018570:Risk Assessment