In the third Slovenian national healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) prevalence survey, conducted within the European point prevalence survey of HAIs and antimicrobial use in acute care hospitals, ...we estimated the prevalence of all types of HAIs and identified factors associated with them.
Patients were enrolled into a one-day cross-sectional study in November 2017. Descriptive analyses were performed to describe the characteristics of patients, their exposure to invasive procedures and the prevalence of different types of HAIs. Univariate and multivariate analyses of association of having at least one HAI with possible risk factors were performed to identify risk factors.
Among 5,743 patients, 4.4% had at least one HAI and an additional 2.2% were still treated for HAIs on the day of the survey, with a prevalence of HAIs of 6.6%. The prevalence of pneumoniae was the highest (1.8%), followed by surgical site infections (1.5%) and urinary tract infections (1.2%). Prevalence of blood stream infections was 0.3%. In intensive care units (ICUs), the prevalence of patients with at least one HAI was 30.6%. Factors associated with HAIs included central vascular catheter (adjusted odds ratio aOR 4.1; 95% confidence intervals CI: 3.1-5.4), peripheral vascular catheter (aOR 3.0; 95% CI: 2.3-3.9), urinary catheter (aOR 1.8; 95% CI: 1.4-2.3).
The prevalence of HAIs in Slovenian acute care hospitals in 2017 was substantial, especially in ICUs. HAIs prevention and control is an important public health priority. National surveillance of HAIs in ICUs should be developed to support evidence-based prevention and control.
The objective was to present the results of the Slovenian National surgical site infections (SSIs) surveillance system from 2013 to 2016 and to compare them to the reference data for the European ...Union (EU) and European Economic Area (EEA) countries.
Surveillance was conducted according to the Slovenian protocol consistent with the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control protocol. Descriptive analyses were performed.
Data were collected for 1080 patients of whom 57.4% were patients with cholecystectomy (from three hospitals), 29.0% with caesarean sections (from four hospitals) and 4.7%, 4.5% and 4.4% patients with hip prosthesis, knee prosthesis and colon surgery (each surgical category from one hospital). The pooled in-hospital SSI incidence density for caesarean section was 3.7 (95% CI: 1.4-8.1; inter-hospital range: 0.0-11.5) and for cholecystectomy 6.8 (95% CI: 3.5-11.9; inter-hospital range: 4.1-11.9) per 1000 post-operative patient-days. The in-hospital SSI incidence density for colon surgery was 24.8 (95% CI: 12.5-44.0) and for hip prosthesis 2.6 (95% CI: 0.1-14.2) per 1000 post-operative patient-days. No SSIs were reported among the 49 patients with knee prostheses.
The estimated SSIs incidence rates varied between different surgical categories and the different participating hospitals. In some of the participating hospitals and for some of the surgical procedures under surveillance they were rather high in comparison to the reference data for hospitals from EU/EEA countries. It is urgent to expand standardised SSIs surveillance to all Slovenian acute care hospitals with surgical wards to contribute to evidence-based SSIs prevention and control in Slovenia.
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