Multimodal supervision programme to reduce catheter associated urinary tract infections and its analysis to enable focus on labour and cost effective infection control measures in a tertiary care hospital in India - Abstract

Background: Catheter Associated Urinary Tract Infections (CAUTI) contribute 30%-40% of all the nosocomial infections and they are associated with substantially increased institutional death rates. A multimodal supervision program which incorporates training of the staff with respect to infection control measures can be effective in reducing the CAUTIs in hospitals.

Aim: To assess the impact of a multimodal UTI supervision program on the CAUTI rates over a year, from January 2009 to December 2009, in a tertiary care hospital in India.

Setting: A 215 bedded tertiary care private hospital.

Materials and Methods: The CAUTI rates were analyzed for the first 6 months (January 2009-June 2009). A UTI supervision program was instituted in the month of July 2009, which included training with respect to the standard protocols for the sample collection and diagnosis, the bundle components of the urinary catheter checklist and hand hygiene practices. The impact was assessed as per the CAUTI rates in the subsequent months.

Results: The average CAUTI rate was reduced by 47.1% (from 10.6 to 5.6) after the introduction of the supervision program. This study presented the mean age of the patients with CAUTIs as 54.5 years and it showed an approximately equal contribution of both the sexes (52.94% in males and 47.05% in females). The impact analysis of the supervision program showed a reduction of 8.7% (from 23 days to 21 days) during the average duration of the catheterization. The adherence to the components of the urinary catheter check list was increased by 44.4% (p=0.069) and the hand hygiene compliance was increased by 56.4% (p=0.004) respectively after the interventions. Components like bladder irrigation and practising perineal cleaning were found to show no effect on the CAUTI rates.

Conclusion: The most common labour and cost effective infection control measures as revealed by the supervision programme were adherence to the urinary catheter checklist components (indication for catheter insertion and change, asepsis maintenance during and after the catheter insertion and avoiding urine reflux) and hand hygiene practices, whereas bladder irrigation and practising perineal cleaning thrice a day were unnecessary measures.

Written by:
Jaggi N, Sissodia P. Are you the author?
Director, Labs & Infection Control Artemis Health Institute , Gurgaon, India.

Reference: J Clin Diagn Res. 2012 Oct;6(8):1372-6.
doi: 10.7860/JCDR/2012/4229.2362

PubMed Abstract
PMID: 23205350