Systematic review of interventions to reduce urinary tract infection in nursing home residents
BACKGROUND
Urinary tract infections (UTIs) in nursing homes are common, costly, and morbid.
PURPOSE
Systematic literature review of strategies to reduce UTIs in nursing home residents.
DATA SOURCES
Ovid MEDLINE, Cochrane Library, CINAHL, Web of Science and Embase through June 22, 2015.
STUDY SELECTION
Interventional studies with a comparison group reporting at least 1 outcome for: catheter-associated UTI (CAUTI), UTIs not identified as catheter-associated, bacteriuria, or urinary catheter use.
DATA EXTRACTION
Two authors abstracted study design, participant and intervention details, outcomes, and quality measures.
DATA SYNTHESIS
Of 5794 records retrieved, 20 records describing 19 interventions were included: 8 randomized controlled trials, 10 pre-post nonrandomized interventions, and 1 nonrandomized intervention with concurrent controls. Quality (range, 8-25; median, 15) and outcome definitions varied greatly. Thirteen studies employed strategies to reduce catheter use or improve catheter care; 9 studies employed general infection prevention strategies (eg, improving hand hygiene, surveillance, contact precautions, reducing antibiotics). The 19 studies reported 12 UTI outcomes, 9 CAUTI outcomes, 4 bacteriuria outcomes, and 5 catheter use outcomes. Five studies showed CAUTI reduction (1 significantly); 9 studies showed UTI reduction (none significantly); 2 studies showed bacteriuria reduction (none significantly). Four studies showed reduced catheter use (1 significantly).
LIMITATIONS
Studies were often underpowered to assess statistical significance; none were pooled given variety of interventions and outcomes.
CONCLUSIONS
Several practices, often implemented in bundles, such as improving hand hygiene, reducing and improving catheter use, managing incontinence without catheters, and enhanced barrier precautions, appear to reduce UTI or CAUTI in nursing home residents. Journal of Hospital Medicine 2017;12:356-368. © 2017 Society of Hospital Medicine
© 2017 Society of Hospital Medicine
Given the limited number of geriatricians in the U.S., hospitalists commonly manage nursing home residents admitted for post-acute care.1-4 Urinary tract infection (UTI) is one of the most common infections in nursing homes, often leading to sepsis and readmission to acute care.5 Inappropriate use of antibiotics to treat asymptomatic bacteriuria is both common and hazardous to nursing home residents.6 Up to 10% of nursing home residents will have an indwelling urinary catheter at some point during their stay.7-9 Residents with indwelling urinary catheters are at increased risk for catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI) and bacteriuria, with an estimated 50% of catheterized residents developing symptomatic CAUTI.5 While urinary catheter prevalence is lower in nursing homes than in the acute care setting, duration of use is often prolonged.7,10 In a setting where utilization is low, but use is prolonged, interventions designed to reduce UTI in acutely ill patients11 may not be as helpful for preventing infection in nursing home residents.
Our objective was to review the available evidence to prevent UTIs in nursing home residents to inform both bedside care and research efforts. Two types of literature review and summary were performed. First, we conducted a systematic review of individual studies reporting outcomes of UTI, CAUTI, bacteriuria, or urinary catheter use after interventions for reducing catheter use, improving insertion and maintenance of catheters, and/or general infection prevention strategies (eg, improving hand hygiene, infection surveillance, contact precautions, standardizing UTI diagnosis, and antibiotic use). Second, we performed a narrative review to generate an overview of evidence and published recommendations in both acute care and nursing home settings to prevent UTI in catheterized and non-catheterized older adults, which is provided as a comprehensive reference table for clinicians and researchers choosing and refining interventions to reduce UTIs.
METHODS
The systematic review was performed according to the criteria of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis recommendations. The protocol was registered at the PROSPERO International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews, (CRD42013005787). The narrative review was performed using the articles obtained from the systematic search and a targeted literature review by topic for a comprehensive list of interventions, including other interventions summarized in published reviews and guidelines.
