Risk Factors Affecting Death from Hospital-Acquired Infections in Trauma Patients: Association Rule Mining

Trauma patients are potentially at high risk of acquiring infections in hospitals,which is the main cause of in-hospital mortality. The aim of this study was to identify the riskfactors contributing to death from hospital-acquired infections in trauma patients by datamining techniques.

This is a cohort study. A total of 549 trauma patients with nosocomial infectionwho were admitted to Shiraz trauma hospital between 2017 and 2018 were studied. Sex,age, mechanism of injury, body region injured, injury severity score, length of stay, typeof intervention, infection day after admission, microorganism cause of infections, andthe outcomes were collected. Association rule mining techniques were applied to extractknowledge from the data set. The IBM SPSS Modeler data mining software version 18.0 wasused as a tool for data mining of the trauma patients with hospital queried infections database.

The age older than 65, surgical site infection skin, bloodstream infection, mechanisminjury of car accident, invasive intervention of tracheal intubation, injury severity score higherthan 16, and multiple injuries with higher than 71 percent confidence level were associatedwith in-hospital mortality. The relationship between those predicators and death amonghospital-acquired infection was strong (Lift value >1).

Factors such as increasing age, tracheal intubation, mechanical ventilator,surgical site infection skin, upper respiratory infection are associated with death fromhospital-acquired infections in trauma patients by data mining.