Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2024 Apr 11;13(1):39.
doi: 10.1186/s13756-024-01398-1.

Level of implementation of multimodal strategies for infection prevention and control interventions and prevalence of healthcare-associated infections in Northern Italy

Costanza Vicentini  1 , Roberta Bussolino  2 , Claudia Gastaldo  2 , Marta Castagnotto  2 , Fortunato Paolo D'Ancona  3 , Carla Maria Zotti  2 ; Working group “Unità Prevenzione Rischio Infettivo (UPRI), Regione Piemonte”
Collaborators, Affiliations

Level of implementation of multimodal strategies for infection prevention and control interventions and prevalence of healthcare-associated infections in Northern Italy

Costanza Vicentini et al. Antimicrob Resist Infect Control. .

Abstract

Background: In November 2022, Italy participated in the third edition of the European Centre for disease prevention and control (ECDC) point prevalence survey (PPS) of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) in acute-care hospitals. A questionnaire based on the WHO infection prevention and control assessment framework (IPCAF) was included, which aims to investigate multimodal strategies for the implementation of IPC interventions.

Methods: A PPS was conducted using the ECDC PPS protocol version 6.0. The Regional health authority of the region of Piedmont, in north-western Italy, chose to enlist all public acute-care hospitals. Data were collected within one day per each ward, within 3 weeks in each hospital, at hospital, ward and patient level. A score between 0-1 or 0-2 was assigned to each of the 9 items in the IPCAF questionnaire, with 14 points representing the best possible score. HAI prevalence was calculated at the hospital-level as the percentage of patients with at least one HAI over all included patients. Relations between HAI prevalence, IPCAF score, and other hospital-level variables were assessed using Spearman's Rho coefficient.

Results: In total, 42 acute-care hospitals of the region of Piedmont were involved, with a total of 6865 included patients. All participant hospitals reported they employed multimodal strategies to implement IPC interventions. The median IPCAF overall score was 11/14 (interquartile range, IQR: 9.25-12). The multimodal strategy with the highest level of adherence was education and training, followed by communication and reminders. Strategies with the lowest level of adherence were safety climate and culture of change, and system change. Overall HAI prevalence was 8.06%. A weak to moderate inverse relation was found between IPCAF score and HAI prevalence (Spearman's Rho -0.340, p 0.034). No other significant correlation was found.

Conclusions: This study found a high self-reported overall level of implementation of multimodal strategies for IPC in the region. Results of this study suggest the relevance of the multimodal approach and the validity of the IPCAF score in measuring IPC programs, in terms of effectiveness of preventing HAI transmission.

Keywords: Healthcare-associated infections; Infection prevention and control; Italy; Point prevalence survey.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Flow chart of study participants
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Scatter plot depicting the relation between healthcare-associated infection (HAI) prevalence (%) and infection prevention and control assessment framework (IPCAF) score
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Bordino V, Vicentini C, D’Ambrosio A, Quattrocolo F, Collaborating Group, Zotti CM Burden of healthcare-associated infections in Italy: incidence, attributable mortality and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) from a nationwide study, 2016. J Hosp Infect. 2021;113:164–71. doi: 10.1016/j.jhin.2021.04.023. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Cassini A, Plachouras D, Eckmanns T, Abu Sin M, Blank HP, Ducomble T, et al. Burden of six healthcare-associated infections on european population health: estimating incidence-based disability-adjusted life years through a population prevalence-based modelling study. PLoS Med. 2016;13(10):e1002150. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1002150. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Suetens C, Latour K, Kärki T, Ricchizzi E, Kinross P, Moro ML, et al. Prevalence of healthcare-associated infections, estimated incidence and composite antimicrobial resistance index in acute care hospitals and long-term care facilities: results from two European point prevalence surveys, 2016 to 2017. Euro Surveill. 2018;23(46):1800516. doi: 10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2018.23.46.1800516. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Schreiber PW, Sax H, Wolfensberger A, Clack L, Kuster SP, Swissnoso The preventable proportion of healthcare-associated infections 2005–2016: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol. 2018;39(11):1277–95. doi: 10.1017/ice.2018.183. - DOI - PubMed
    1. World Health Organization. Infection prevention and control assessment framework at the facility level. WHO: Geneva; 2018. Available from: https://www.who.int/publications-detail-redirect/WHO-HIS-SDS-2018.9. Cited 2023 Dec 6.

LinkOut - more resources