TY - JOUR
T1 - Unexpected benefit of COVID-19 hospital restrictions
T2 - Reduction in patients isolating with multidrug resistant organisms after restrictions were lifted
AU - Elliott, Thomas M.
AU - Hurst, Cameron
AU - Doidge, Michelle
AU - Hurst, Trish
AU - Harris, Patrick NA
AU - Gordon, Louisa G.
N1 - Funding Information:
This study was supported by Queensland Genomics, Queensland Health , Queensland Government , Australia.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Australasian College for Infection Prevention and Control
PY - 2022/2
Y1 - 2022/2
N2 - Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, measures to prevent microorganism transmission were implemented across hospitals, including wearing compulsory surgical masks, minimising non-urgent procedures and restricting visitors. Previously, concerns have been raised that MRO-associated deaths could rise during a future pandemic through superimposed bacterial infections, inappropriate antibiotic use and reduced focus on preventing MRO infections. Methods: In the state of Queensland, Australia with a population of 5 million, only a short first wave of coronavirus cases occurred and restrictions were quickly scaled back. This presented a natural experiment of pre-, during and post-COVID-19 restriction timings to evaluate the effectiveness of heightened prevention measures on multidrug resistant organism (MRO) infections. Patient isolation days and MRO types were collected weekly from routine infection control reports, at a large public hospital, from 28th January 2020 to 24th July 2020. In this interrupted time series design, we employed Poisson mixed effect regression modelling to evaluate the difference in incidence of patient isolation days between time periods. Results: Compared to pre-COVID, patient isolation days reduced during COVID restrictions (incidence rate ratio 0.65, 95%CI: 0.59, 0.70; p < 0.001) and increased again post-COVID restrictions, but did not return to pre-COVID levels (0.87, 95%CI: 0.80, 0.95; p = 0.001). The efficiency of isolating patients improved after COVID-19 with fewer bed closures required. Conclusion: Heightened infection control awareness, hand sanitation and mask wearing after COVID-19 restrictions were lifted appear to effectively prevent common hospital-acquired MRO infections.
AB - Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, measures to prevent microorganism transmission were implemented across hospitals, including wearing compulsory surgical masks, minimising non-urgent procedures and restricting visitors. Previously, concerns have been raised that MRO-associated deaths could rise during a future pandemic through superimposed bacterial infections, inappropriate antibiotic use and reduced focus on preventing MRO infections. Methods: In the state of Queensland, Australia with a population of 5 million, only a short first wave of coronavirus cases occurred and restrictions were quickly scaled back. This presented a natural experiment of pre-, during and post-COVID-19 restriction timings to evaluate the effectiveness of heightened prevention measures on multidrug resistant organism (MRO) infections. Patient isolation days and MRO types were collected weekly from routine infection control reports, at a large public hospital, from 28th January 2020 to 24th July 2020. In this interrupted time series design, we employed Poisson mixed effect regression modelling to evaluate the difference in incidence of patient isolation days between time periods. Results: Compared to pre-COVID, patient isolation days reduced during COVID restrictions (incidence rate ratio 0.65, 95%CI: 0.59, 0.70; p < 0.001) and increased again post-COVID restrictions, but did not return to pre-COVID levels (0.87, 95%CI: 0.80, 0.95; p = 0.001). The efficiency of isolating patients improved after COVID-19 with fewer bed closures required. Conclusion: Heightened infection control awareness, hand sanitation and mask wearing after COVID-19 restrictions were lifted appear to effectively prevent common hospital-acquired MRO infections.
KW - COVID-19
KW - Interrupted time series analysis
KW - Multidrug resistant organism
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85122624830&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.idh.2021.08.001
DO - 10.1016/j.idh.2021.08.001
M3 - Article
C2 - 34507923
AN - SCOPUS:85122624830
VL - 27
SP - 10
EP - 14
JO - Infection, Disease and Health
JF - Infection, Disease and Health
SN - 2468-0451
IS - 1
ER -