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The Drivers of Acute and Long-term Care Clostridium difficile Infection Rates: A Retrospective Multilevel Cohort Study of 251 Facilities.

Brown KA, Daneman N, Jones M, Nechodom K, Stevens V, Adler FR, Goetz MB, Mayer J, Samore M. The Drivers of Acute and Long-term Care Clostridium difficile Infection Rates: A Retrospective Multilevel Cohort Study of 251 Facilities. Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. 2017 Oct 15; 65(8):1282-1288.

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Abstract:

Background: Drivers of differences in Clostridium difficile incidence across acute and long-term care facilities are poorly understood. We sought to obtain a comprehensive picture of C. difficile incidence and risk factors in acute and long-term care. Methods: We conducted a case-cohort study of persons spending at least 3 days in one of 131 acute care or 120 long-term care facilities managed by the United States Veterans Health Administration between 2006 and 2012. Patient (n = 8) and facility factors (n = 5) were included in analyses. The outcome was the incidence of facility-onset laboratory-identified C. difficile infection (CDI), defined as a person with a positive C. difficile test without a positive test in the prior 8 weeks. Results: CDI incidence in acute care was 5 times that observed in long-term care (median, 15.6 vs 3.2 per 10000 person-days). History of antibiotic use was greater in acute care compared to long-term care (median, 739 vs 513 per 1000 person-days) and explained 72% of the variation in C. difficile rates. Importation of C. difficile cases (acute care: patients with recent long-term care attributable infection; long-term care: residents with recent acute care attributable infection) was 3 times higher in long-term care as compared to acute care (median, 52.3 vs 16.2 per 10000 person-days). Conclusions: Facility-level antibiotic use was the main factor driving differences in CDI incidence between acute and long-term care. Importation of acute care C. difficile cases was a greater concern for long-term care as compared to importation of long-term care cases for acute care.





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