A Study on the Prevalence of Nosocomial Infections in ICU Patients Admitted at Baqyiatallah Hospital

Nosocomial infection with multi-drug resistance, particularly at ICU, is considered a significant socio-economic as well as medical complication all over the world. This can spread various infections in the community or cause longer hospitalizations and impose more expenses on the patients. The purpose of this study was to determine nosocomial infection in ICU patients admitted at Baqyiatallah hospital during a whole period of a year. The study was conducted descriptive cross-sectionally during a period of 12 months from March to February 2005 at a university hospital in Tehran, Iran. All the ICU patients who were hospitalized with no signs and symptoms of infection before the first 48 hours of hospitalization and presenting signs and symptoms of infection after 48 hours of hospitalization were covered by this study. Bacterial strains were isolated from various clinical samples of the patients then identified by the conventional methods. The prevalence of nosocomial infection with multi-drug resistance all during this study was 3.4%. The most prevalent organism was Staphylococcus aureus (38.1%) followed by Pseudomonas auroginosa (31%). The most nosocomial microorganisms were isolated from samples obtained from lower respiratory tract (74.8%) and wounds (16.9%). The most prevalence of nosocomial infections were observed in patients of over 50 years old. There is a need to study more about the causes of nosocomial infections and development of preventative strategies in order to prevent the spread of such infectious diseases.