An investigation of the incidence of N osocomial infections among the patients admitted in the intensive care unit of a tertiary care hospital in Rajasthan, India

The present study aimed to investigate the incidence of nosocomial infections (NI) among the patients admitted in the intensive care unit (ICU) in the medical ward of a tertiary care hospital. This was a cross-sectional hospital based study. The patients admitted in the ICU, without evidence of initial infection, were included in the study. Bacterial strains were identified with the help of gram staining and biochemical tests. Mainly, facultative anaerobes and aerobic bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus, E. coli, Klebsiella, Pseudomonas species etc. were taken into consideration. More than half (57.3%) of the patients were 40 years and 53% were males. The incidence of NI was 24.9% (95%CI=18.6-31.1%). Age, sex, education, occupation and SES were significantly associated with the incidence of NI. The Acinetobacter baumanii (83.2% ) was the most common organism found followed by Pseudomonous aeruginosa (73.5%) Escherichia coli (72.5%), Staphylococcus aureus (53.3%), Klebsiella pneumoniae (41.3%), Coagulasenegative staphylococcus (33.4%) and Enterococcus faecalis (22.2%). The nosocomial infection is one of major problems in the ICUs in the hospitals. We suggest large scale studies to be carried out among Indian population for prevention and management of nosocomial infections as this was small sample size study. The study on the community acquired infections should also be conducted