Healthcare-associated infections at a tertiary level pediatric intensive care unit from Turkey

INTRODUCTION: Health care-associated infections are important situations that may lead to increased morbidity and mortality, prolonged hospital stay and increased costs. The incidence of health care-associated infections has been reported to be higher in developing countries but data regarding the epidemiology in pediatric patients is limited. The aim of this study was to determine the rate and distribution of health care-associated infections and the antimicrobial susceptibility patterns in pediatric intensive care unit
METHODS: Demographic and clinical details, microbiological findings, antibiotic susceptibility results and the outcomes of the all hospitalized pediatric intensive care unit patients were collected for one year(September 2017-2018).
RESULTS: The health care-associated infections rate was 5.6 per 100 admissions and the incidence density was 7.2 per 1000 patient-days. Bloodstream infections (50%) was the most common type and Klebsiella species (40.9%) was the most common cause of health care-associated infections All of the Klebsiella spp. were resistant strains with producing ESBLs (77.7% ) and the remaining were resistant to carbapenem. Acinetobacter species and colistin resistance was not detected in any isolates.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: This study demonstrated a low prevalence of health care-associated infections but a high rate of antibiotic resistance in Klebsiella species in pediatric intensive care unit. In addition to improved surveillance, consultation on infectious diseases in empirical treatment and the ongoing management will allow the development of interventions to reduce health care-associated infections and also provides appropriate targeted treatment.