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. 2022 Nov 3;11(1):131.
doi: 10.1186/s13756-022-01176-x.

Cross-site collaboration on infection prevention and control research-room for improvement? A 7-year comparative study in five European countries

Vanessa M Eichel  1 , Christina Brühwasser  2   3 , Enrique Castro-Sánchez  4 , Gabriel Birgand  5 , Erik Bathoorn  6 , Florian Salm  7 , Nico T Mutters  8
Affiliations

Cross-site collaboration on infection prevention and control research-room for improvement? A 7-year comparative study in five European countries

Vanessa M Eichel et al. Antimicrob Resist Infect Control. .

Abstract

Background: The spread of SARS-CoV-2, multidrug-resistant organisms and other healthcare-associated pathogens represents supra-regional challenges for infection prevention and control (IPC) specialists in every European country. To tackle these problems, cross-site research collaboration of IPC specialists is very important. This study assesses the extent and quality of national research collaborations of IPC departments of university hospitals located in Austria, England, France, Germany, and the Netherlands, identifies network gaps, and provides potential solutions.

Methods: Joint publications of IPC heads of all university hospitals of the included countries between 1st of June 2013 until 31st of May 2020 were collected by Pubmed/Medline search. Further, two factors, the journal impact factor and the type/position of authorship, were used to calculate the Scientific Collaboration Impact (SCI) for all included sites; nationwide network analysis was performed.

Results: In five European countries, 95 sites and 125 responsible leaders for IPC who had been in charge during the study period were identified. Some countries such as Austria have only limited national research cooperations, while the Netherlands has established a gapless network. Most effective collaborating university site of each country were Lille with an SCI of 1146, Rotterdam (408), Berlin (268), Sussex (204), and Vienna/Innsbruck (18).

Discussion: The present study indicates major differences and room for improvement in IPC research collaborations within each country and underlines the potential and importance of collaborating in IPC.

Keywords: Collaboration; Cross-site; Europe; IPC; Infection control.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Flow chart of site, IPC head, and publication identification. Identification of university hospitals of five European countries and the person in charge of ICP at the site for the study period and following identification of publications within each country. AT Austria, EN England, FR France, GE Germany, NL The Netherlands, IPC Infection Prevention and Control
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Scientific Collaboration Index (SCI), all publications (pub), and joint publications (jnt-pub) per site of each country
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
IPC Network analyses of University hospitals of five European countries. Red circles mark sites with highest SCI of a country. Nodes: sites of a country; Edges: SCI between a site and it’s collaborating site; Node colours mapping: strength of SCI; Edges width mapping: SCI; Edges grey-colour mapping: year of SCI; Numbers on edges: SCI of the year. Sites without connections are not depicted
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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