Evaluation of Bacterial Nosocomial Infections and Antibiotic Resistance Pattern: A 2-year Epidemiological Surveillance Study in a Hospital Population

Introduction: Hospital infections and bacterial antibiotic resistance are numerous issues that have been reported worldwide over the years and lead to costly and long-term treatment options. The purpose of this study was to survey the prevalence of nosocomial bacterial infections and antibiotic resistance patterns of the bacteria in hospitalized patients admitted to a teaching hospital in the north of Iran. Methods: This cross-sectional study performed by using available data and census methods on all patients with nosocomial infections (NIs) who were admitted to BO-ALI SINA hospital from March 2017 to March 2018. MS Excel 2016 and SPSS version 16.0 were used for statistical analysis. Findings: Out of 517 patients with positive bacterial cultures, 57.3% were female. Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus epidermidis, and Klebsiella pneumonia were the most prevalent agents of NIs. The highest infection rate in hospital wards was observed in internal medicine, neurology, and intensive care units, respectively. E. coli showed the highest resistance rate against ampicillin (88.7%) and cephalexin (74.2%). Conclusion: Early recognition of the infections with proper infection control procedures can significantly decrease the incidence of nosocomial infections in hospitals. Various studies have shown that antibiotic resistance patterns are different in dissimilar regions. Increasing the antibiotic resistance can be a sign of improper use of antibiotics, indicating the need for more attention to it. Our findings can help physicians and health care staff to have better treatment options against the bacterial NIs.