Hospital-Acquired Infections in Elderly Versus Younger Patients in an Acute Care Hospital

A growing number of elderly patients are hospitalized for various causes and age has been described inconsistently as a risk factor for acquiring nosocomial infections with a subsequent higher mortality rate compared to younger patients..
To describe the incidence, type, and microbiological characteristics of nosocomial infections in elderly and non-elderly patients..
Patients and Retrospective analysis of all hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) in an academic community hospital. Patients were stratified into two groups: non-elderly (18 - 64 years) and elderly (> 65 years)..
A total of 18469 patients were included (108555 hospital days) in this study. About 79.6% of HAI were infected non-elderly and 20.3% elderly (P 0.05). Hospital mortality increased with every HAI diagnosed per patient..
The study showed that HAIs were more frequent in elderly population predominately with respect to VAP and infections by Gram-negative pathogens. Overall mortally was greater in the elderly group although the odds ratio for death was higher in younger patients and increased with every HAI diagnosed..