Nosocomial infections

Abstract

Nosocomial infections can be defined as those occurring within 48 hours of hospital admission, 3 days of discharge or 30 days of an operation. They affect 1 in 10 patients admitted to hospital. Annually, this results in 5000 deaths with a cost to the National Health Service of a billion pounds. On average, a patient with hospital acquired infection spent 2.5-times longer in hospital, incurring additional costs of £3000 more than an uninfected patient. Intensive care units (ICU) have the highest prevalence of hospital-acquired infections in the hospital setting. The European Prevalence of Infection in Intensive Care Study (EPIC), involving over 4500 patients, demonstrated that the nosocomial infection prevalence rate in ICU was 20.6%.¹ ICU patients are particularly at risk from nosocomial infections as a result of mechanical ventilation, use of invasive procedures and their immunocompromised status (Table 1).