UTIs more often linked to causes other than catheter use; many facilities lack preventive measures
FRIDAY, June 10, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are common in nursing home residents, often due to a lack of proper prevention, according to a study scheduled to be presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC), held from June 11 to 13 in Charlotte, N.C.
A team from New York City’s Columbia University School of Nursing surveyed 955 nursing homes in 2014. The researchers also analyzed data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
The investigators found that in any given month, for 88,135 nursing home residents in the study, an average of 5.4 percent of them — more than 4,700 patients — had a UTI. Nursing home residents with catheters were four times more likely to get a UTI than those without catheters. However, UTIs were more often linked to causes other than catheter use.
“What was particularly interesting about this study was that there were more UTIs that were not associated with catheterization than those that were,” lead author Carolyn Herzig, Ph.D., project director at Columbia’s School of Nursing, said in an APIC news release. “This means that a larger focus should be placed on identifying practices to prevent UTIs — regardless of catheter placement.”
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