Analysis of the Risk Factors for Nosocomial Bacterial Infection in Patients with COVID-19 in a Tertiary Hospital

Cheng, Keping; He, Miao; Shu, Qin; Wu, Ming; Chen, Cuifang; Xue, Yulei

BACKGROUND: Infection surveillance and risk factor analysis are among the most important prerequisites for the prevention and treatment of nosocomial bacteria infections, which are the demands for both infected and non-infected patients. PURPOSE: To explore the risk factors for nosocomial bacterial infection of patients with COVID-19, and further to provide a theoretical basis for scientific prevention and control of nosocomial bacterial infection. METHODS: Between 10 January 2020 and 9 March 2020, we collected data of 212 patients with COVID-19 and then explored the influence of age, gender, length of stay, use of ventilator, urinary catheterization, central venous catheterization, white blood cell (WBC) count and procalcitonin on the nosocomial bacterial infection of patients with COVID-19 by a retrospective study. RESULTS: There were 212 confirmed cases of COVID-19, of which 31 cases had nosocomial bacterial infections, with an incidence of 14.62%. The most common types of nosocomial bacterial infections were lower respiratory tract (12 cases, 38.71%), which was the most frequent site, followed by urinary tract (10 cases, 32.26%), blood stream (7 cases, 22.58%), upper respiratory tract (1 case, 3.23%) and gastrointestinal tract infection (1 case, 3.23%). The incidence of nosocomial bacterial infection was significantly correlated with age, arteriovenous catheterization, urinary catheterization, WBC count and procalcitonin. Moreover, multivariate analysis confirmed that WBC (OR 8.38, 95% CI 1.07 to 65.55), procalcitonin (OR 4.92, 95% CI 1.39 to 17.33) and urinary catheterization (OR 25.38, 95% CI 5.09 to 126.53) were independent risk factors for the nosocomial bacterial infection of patients with COVID-19. CONCLUSION: Understanding the risk factors for nosocomial bacterial infection of patients with COVID-19 and strengthening the monitoring of various susceptible factors are helpful to control the occurrence of nosocomial bacterial infection in the COVID-19 isolation wards.