C. difficile infections prolong hospital stays, study reports

The most common hospital-acquired infection, Clostridium Difficile, may signficantly prolong hospital stays, according to multiple reports published earlier this month.

Previous studies had found healthcare-acquired infections can prolong stay time by an average of six days. But a recent Canadian Medical Association Journal study examined hospital admissions between 2002 and 2009 and found that 1,393 of 136,877 patients contracted C. difficile. Those patients that were infected by C. difficile spent 34 days in the hospital compared with eight days for patients who were not infected. Led by Dr. Alan Forster of the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, the study concluded that “hospital-acquired C. difficile significantly and independently prolongs the duration of a patient’s stay in the hospital.”

The findings were recently reported by ThirdAge.com.