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The impact of hospital‐onset Clostridium difficile infection on outcomes of hospitalized patients with sepsis
Author(s) -
Lagu Tara,
Stefan Mihaela S.,
Haessler Sarah,
Higgins Thomas L.,
Rothberg Michael B.,
Nathanson Brian H.,
Han Nicholas S.,
Steingrub Jay S.,
Lindenauer Peter K.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
journal of hospital medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.128
H-Index - 65
eISSN - 1553-5606
pISSN - 1553-5592
DOI - 10.1002/jhm.2199
Subject(s) - medicine , clostridium difficile , propensity score matching , sepsis , confidence interval , retrospective cohort study , multivariate analysis , cohort study , intensive care medicine , emergency medicine , antibiotics , microbiology and biotechnology , biology
OBJECTIVE To examine the impact of hospital‐onset Clostridium difficile infection (HOCDI) on the outcomes of patients with sepsis. BACKGROUND Most prior studies that have addressed this issue lacked adequate matching to controls, suffered from small sample size, or failed to consider time to infection. DESIGN Retrospective cohort study. SETTING AND PATIENTS We identified adults with a principal or secondary diagnosis of sepsis who received care at 1 of the institutions that participated in a large multihospital database between July 1, 2004 and December 31, 2010. Among eligible patients with sepsis, we identified patients who developed HOCDI during their hospital stay. MEASUREMENTS We used propensity matching and date of diagnosis to match cases to patients without Clostridium difficile infections and compared outcomes between the 2 groups. MAIN RESULTS Of 218,915 sepsis patients, 2368 (1.08%) developed HOCDI. Unadjusted in‐hospital mortality was significantly higher in HOCDI patients than controls (25% vs 10%, P < 0.001). After multivariate adjustment, in‐hospital mortality rate was 24% in cases vs. 15% in controls. In an analysis limited to survivors, adjusted length of stay (LOS) among cases with Clostridium difficile infections was 5.1 days longer than controls (95% confidence interval: 4.4–5.8) and the median‐adjusted cost increase was $4916 ( P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS After rigorous adjustment for time to diagnosis and presenting severity, hospital‐acquired Clostridium difficile infection was associated with increased mortality, LOS, and cost. Our results can be used to assess the cost‐effectiveness of prevention programs and suggest that efforts directed toward high‐risk patient populations are needed. Journal of Hospital Medicine 2014;9:411–417. © 2014 Society of Hospital Medicine