Objective

To know if hospitalization is a risk factor for catheter-related bacteraemia.

Material and Method: Retrospective analysis of catheter-associated bacteraemias in dialysis center dependent on a Nephrology Department of a third level hospital during the 2014-2017 period.

Catheter use times and catheter-related bacteraemias were divided into 2 scenarios: hospital and dialysis center.

The Poisson Regression Model was applied to compare bacteremia in hospital and dialysis center. The same patient could suffer bacteremia more than once and in both scenarios.

Results

361 catheters were used in 174 patients with a total time of use of 91,491 days, with 103 episodes of bacteraemia.

Bacteremia rates

in hospital was 7.81/1000 days/catheter and in dialysis center was 0.81/1000 days/catheter.

The risk of bacteraemia was multiplied by 9.6 during hospitalization versus dialysis center (p <0.001).

Conclusions

The risk of catheter-related bacteraemia increases when patients are hospitalized. Circumstances related to hospitalization are risk factors. Although the greater comorbidity of these patients may partly explain the higher incidence of bacteraemias, the optimization of nursing care -for uninhabited personnel- is the focus of improvement, according to our results.