How do Clostridium difficile infections affect nurses' everyday hospital work: A qualitative study.

This qualitative study explored the impact of Clostridium difficile infections on nurses' everyday work in the hospital. Twelve nurses (six in France and six in the United States) were interviewed in depth using a semi-structured interview guide. Thematic analysis of the interviews was performed. Managing diarrhoea and taking precautionary measures for infection control were the two most inconvenient aspects nurses reported with C. difficile patient management. Precautions included contact isolation, hand hygiene and reorganization/coordination of nursing care and ward. Precautions were time consuming and significantly increased nurses' workload when combined with caring for patients with uncontrollable, frequent bouts of diarrhoea. Management of C. difficile infection is extremely burdensome for nurses in their everyday work and disruptive to hospital organizations as a whole. Prevention of C. difficile infections, together with coordinated team work and communication, would therefore contribute to decreasing nurses' workload and the burden to health-care facilities associated with caring for these patients.

Patients' experience and perception of hospital-treated Clostridium difficile infections: a qualitative study.

BACKGROUND: Clostridium difficile is the leading cause of antibiotic-associated diarrhea and an important source of nosocomial infection. Clinical manifestations can range from mild diarrhea to lethal pseudomembranous colitis. Little is known about the burden of C. difficile infections (CDI) in patients. OBJECTIVE: This qualitative study explored the impact of hospital-treated CDI on patients' lives from the first occurrence of CDI symptoms, through their hospital stay, and after discharge. METHODS: Semi-structured interviews with 12 US and 12 French patients who had experienced CDI were conducted using an interview guide that was developed on the basis of a thorough literature review. Transcripts from these interviews were analyzed to identify concepts related to the research question. FINDINGS: CDI affected numerous aspects of patients' lives. Patients reported that the continuous, watery, and uncontrollable diarrhea characteristic of CDI had the most impact on their daily lives. Diarrhea prevented them from participating in usual daily activities; this caused the collapse of their social lives. Patients felt humiliated and embarrassed. Patients' emotional distress worsened once hospitalized; they reported feelings of loneliness and worry when placed in isolation. From discharge to the time of the interview, patients reported both psychological and physical improvement. However, despite continuing improvement, most patients reported persistent worry and fear of recurrent episodes, and they were thus more careful about their diet and hygiene. CONCLUSION: As one patient in this study explained, CDI is "the worst of everything that I've had." The emotional distress and extreme physical exhaustion associated with CDI result in a traumatic and frightening experience for patients. This trauma persists after recovery and includes lingering fears of a recurrent episode.

Increased hospital length of stay attributable to Clostridium difficile infection in patients with four co-morbidities: an analysis of hospital episode statistics in four European countries.

Hospital-onset Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) places a significant burden on health care systems throughout Europe, estimated at around €3 billion per annum. This burden is shared between national payers and hospitals that support additional bed days for patients diagnosed with CDI while in hospital or patients re-admitted from a previous hospitalisation. This study was performed to quantify additional hospital stay attributable to CDI in four countries, England, Germany, Spain, and The Netherlands, by analysing nationwide hospital-episode data. We focused upon patients at increased risk of CDI: with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, heart failure, diabetes, or chronic kidney disease, and aged 50 years or over. Multivariate regression and propensity score matching models were developed to investigate the impact of CDI on additional length of hospital stay, controlling for confounding factors such as underlying disease severity. Patients in England had the longest additional hospital stay attributable to CDI at 16.09 days, followed by Germany at 15.47 days, Spain at 13.56 days, and The Netherlands at 12.58 days, derived using regression analysis. Propensity score matching indicated a higher attributable length of stay of 32.42 days in England, 15.31 days in Spain, and 18.64 days in The Netherlands. Outputs from this study consistently demonstrate that in European countries, for patients whose hospitalisation is complicated by CDI, the infection causes a statistically significant increase in hospital length of stay. This has implications for optimising resource allocation and budget setting at both the national and hospital level to ensure that levels of CDI-complicated hospitalisations are minimised.