Monetary Cost of Nosocomial Infections in a Tertiary Healthcare Institution in North-Western Nigeria: A retrospective study.

Abstract

Study on the monetary cost of bacterial nosocomial infections in the paediatric wards of a University Teaching Hospital in the North West of Nigeria was carried out. The study was done retrospectively by analysing all the reported cases of patients with bacterial infections admitted into the paediatric wards of the hospital as contained in their case files, over a period of one year (January 2010-December 2010,). The following information was retrieved; age, sex, clinical diagnosis on admission, duration of hospital stay, bacterial infection diagnosed, laboratory data and the antibiotics used with their costs. The cases of bacterial nosocomial infections were established when patients have infections not present or incubating at the time of admission to the hospital or a positive bacterial culture from a focus of infection had on repeat culture from the same focus a different bacterial agent. The data collected were statistically analyzed using SPSS version 17.0. Comparisons were made between mean duration of hospital stay, costs of antibiotics and laboratory investigations of patients with various clinical forms of bacterial nosocomial infections, and duration of hospital stay of patients, costs of antibiotics and laboratory investigations of patients with similar clinical forms of non-nosocomial (community-acquired) bacterial infections. The results showed that a total of 109 out of 1002 patients acquired hospital infections this represent 10.88%. The total cost of managing these hospital acquired infections was estimated at N2, 009, 610.00. The mean cost of antibiotics for managing the Nosocomial infections was greater than that for non- nosocomial infections and this difference between the two groups was statistically significant (p<0.001). The mean cost of laboratory investigations for patients with nosocomial infection was higher than that of patients with non-nosocomial infections. However, the difference was not statistically significant (p>0.05). The mean cost of accommodation for patients with nosocomial infections was also higher.