Analysis of nosocomial acquired Clostridium difficile infection in an Italian research and teaching hospital.

BACKGROUND: Clostridium difficile (Cd) infection is a nosocomial plague which is correlated with several clinical and medical factors such as antibiotics intake. It is known that prevention is possible through infection control measures both clinical and epidemiological.

METHODS: We examined the data from a study about Cd infection in four internal medicine wards in a teaching and research hospital in the north part of Italy in a two years period. The wards are only slightly different in size, plan, structures, nursing staff and patient's characteristics but have a different room' organization, lay out and different level of continuous education programs for nursing personnel.

RESULTS: We reported a high incidence of the infection and a non-significant difference between wards also looking to the different possibility-capacity of taking preventive measures and the different level of nursing staff continuous educational performance.

CONCLUSION: The analysis of the data we obtained was the basis to write a protocol and to start a training course for the medical and nursing personnel of the four wards on the managing of patients infected with Cd infection. On March 2011 we started a one year longitudinal study about the Cd infections in the same wards with the purpose of evaluating the adherence to the protocol, monitoring the incidence of infection and studying the risk factors of the infected patients related to the proper use of the protocol on Cd.