- Poster presentation
- Open Access
- Published:
Risk factors for enterobacter cloacae colonisation at a neonatal intensive care unit in the Netherlands
Antimicrobial Resistance and Infection Control volume 4, Article number: P237 (2015)
Introduction
Following an outbreak of Enterobacter cloacae complex ESBL at a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) in a large tertiary care hospital in the Netherlands, a routine E. cloacae complex screening of all neonates was introduced. Literature on colonisation rates and risk factors for neonatal colonisation with E. cloacae are limited.
Objectives
To determine the colonisation and risk factors for colonisation with E cloacae complex at the NICU.
Methods
Neonates who were admitted at the NICU between March 2013 and April 2014 and who were screened for E. cloacae were included in this study. Microbiological screening data was extracted from the medical microbiology database. Demographical, clinical and admission data and information on birth weight and gestational age were extracted from the electronic patient records. Colonisation rates and risk factors were determined for all neonates and a subgroup of those with gestational age of 30 weeks or below.
Results
Out of 353 neonates who were included in the study, 42 were positive for E. cloacae (11.9%; 95% confidence interval 8.8-15.6%). Risk factors for colonisation were: a lower birth weight, a lower gestational age, lower 1 minute APGAR score and longer duration of admission at the NICU. In neonates who were born ≤30 weeks of gestational age, longer duration of admission and lower gestational age remained independent risk factors for colonisation with E cloacae.
Conclusion
The colonisation rates were highest in the most vulnerable neonates, i.e. those with a lower gestational age, lower birth weight and a longer admission at the NICU. These factors are all interrelated and part of (extreme) prematurity. In situations where screening is performed in response to a suspected outbreak, it is helpful to know the background colonisation rate in order to interpret the colonisation rates. When limited resources are available a cost effective strategy could be to limit screening to neonates born after pregnancy duration <30 weeks.
Disclosure of interest
None declared.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Open Access  This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
About this article
Cite this article
Hopman, J., Maat, I., Jong, E. et al. Risk factors for enterobacter cloacae colonisation at a neonatal intensive care unit in the Netherlands. Antimicrob Resist Infect Control 4 (Suppl 1), P237 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1186/2047-2994-4-S1-P237
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/2047-2994-4-S1-P237
Keywords
- Lower Birth Weight
- Neonatal Intensive Care Unit
- Colonisation Rate
- Tertiary Care Hospital
- Electronic Patient Record