Abdurrahman Sönmezler and Şakir Özgür Keşkek
Objective: The aim of this study was to determine our microorganisms breeding in culture cause of nosocomial infections in neurology intensive care unit (NICU) of a tertiary care hospital.
Methods: This study was performed at the neurology intensive care unit, Adana City Research and Training Hospital, Turkey. A retrospective review of medical records was conducted for all patients admitted to the NICU, and clinical specimens of patients suspected of having infection were received, from September 2017 through July 2018. Data was collected using a neurology intensive care unit electronic database. MedCalc 15.8 software program (MedCalc Belgium) was used for statistical evaluation.
Results: Out of the 84 patients evaluated, there was no microbial growth in the clinical specimens of 24 (28.2%) patients. Microbial growths were observed in blood, urine or tracheal aspirate cultures of 60 (71.8%) of the patients, while there were microbial growths detected in blood cultures of 46 (54.1%) patients; urine cultures of 47 (55.27%) patients, and tracheal aspirate cultures of 15 (17.6%) patients. The highest percentage of bacterial recovery was Escherichia coli (23.6%), which were followed by Staphylococcus epidermidis (10.7%), Acinetobacter baumannii (9.5%), and Staphylococcus aureus (9.5%) respectively.
Conclusion: Clinical specimens from neurology intensive care unit of Adana City Research and Training Hospital, Turkey, yielded Gram-negative (Acinetobacter baumannii and Escherichia coli), as well as Gram-positive (Staphylococcus aureus and Staphylococcus epidermidis) bacterial species.
