Risk Factors and Prevention Strategies of Nosocomial Infection in Geriatric Patients

INTRODUCTION: To investigate the risk factors of nosocomial infections (NIs) in geriatric department and the effectiveness of the proposed prevention strategy. METHODOLOGY: We studied 3370 cases of elderly patients who were hospitalized more than 48 hours from January 2015 to December 2017 in the Geriatrics Department of Zhongda Hospital, Southeast University. In order to reduce the infection rate, nutritional risk screening (NRS 2002) was used to evaluate the nutritional status of the patients; enteral nutritional suspension (TPF-FOS) was provided to the patients who were assessed to be necessary. RESULTS: Before prevention strategy was taken, the nosocomial infection rate was 3.3% (80 among 2413 patients) in our department. The most frequent NIs were pneumonia (60 cases) followed by urinary tract infection (30 cases). It is worth noting that the elderly patients are often associated with multiple infections: in our study, 15 patients have pneumonia and UTI at the same time. After prevention strategy was taken, the nosocomial infection rate reduced to 1.15% (11 among 957 patients) in our department. CONCLUSIONS: NIs are common in elderly patients. The improvement of the nutritional status of patients is effective in reducing the risks of NIs.