ABSTRACT
The emerging situation in health services caused by coronavirus has resulted in a strenuous increase in ICU admissions, as well as the use of antimicrobials, often indicated for treatment of co-infections acquired in the hospital environment. The present study aims to describe the factors associated with bacterial co-infections with a multidrug resistance (MR) profile compared to patients without a multidrug resistance profile. For this purpose, a case-control study was conducted containing 127 patients who were hospitalized with a diagnosis of COVID-19 and admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the reference hospital for the 8th Health Regional of Francisco Beltrao-PR, Brazil, with laboratory and clinical evidence of coinfection. The mean age was 55.22 years, ranging from 24 to 86 years, 85% of patients were admitted in the year 2021, 52.8% were male, stayed an average of 17.72 days in the ICU and 79.5% had at least one comorbidity, especially obesity, diabetes and hypertension. Of 66.1% COVID-19 patients who died, 52.4% had at least one multidrug-resistant bacteria (MR) coinfection. Patients with MR had a greater number of comorbidities, stayed more days in the ICU, used antimicrobials longer, and ventilator-associated pneumonia was variably associated with the presence of MR in patients with COVID-19.