Abstract

Objective: In this study, we aimed to investigate the link between healthcare-associated infections and mortality in critically ill patients who stayed in a third level intensive care unit (ICU) more than 90 days.

Methods: Records of patients who were over 18 years old and stayed in ICU more than 90 days between January 2010 and August 2014 were analyzed retrospectively.

Results: 60 out of 65 patients that met the specified criteria were included in the study. The mean age was 64.5 (range 14-95) years and the mean length of hospitalization was 129 (range 90-235) days. Half of the patients were women. The most common diagnosis at admission was cerebrovascular disease (41.2%) and pneumonia (15%). No infections were observed in 25% of the patients. There were totally 87 infections detected in 45 patients who had infection. Of these, 48% had bloodstream infections, while 33% of them had ventilator-associated pneumonia, and 10% had urinary tract infection. There was no significant difference between patients with (64.4%) and without (53.3%) infections in terms of mortality. Length of stay in patients with multiple episodes of infection was significantly higher than patients with no infection and with one episode of infection.

Conclusions: We have found that prolonged length of stay in ICU is an important result of healthcare-associated infections. Precautions should be taken for common infections and compliance levels with control precautions should be increased.