Background
Daily skin cleansing with washcloths impregnated with chlorhexidine gluconate (CHG)
of patients in intensive care unit is associated with reduction in incidence of vancomycin-resistant
Enterococci (VRE) acquisition. This study describes the impact on incidence of VRE
colonization after the implementation of daily skin cleansing with 2% CHG-impregnated
washcloths in hematology–oncology patients.
Methods
In this before-and-after study, we compared the incidence rate of VRE colonization
during the baseline period (where routine soap-and-water bathing was used) with the
intervention period where patients were cleansed with 2% CHG-impregnated washcloths.
Results
Acquisition of VRE decreased from 7.8% in the baseline to 3.8% in the intervention
period (relative risk, 0.48, 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.21-1.09; P = .07). The crude relative rate of acquisition during the intervention period compared
with the baseline period was 0.53 (95% CI, 0.23-1.23; P = .13). Patients who had been a roommate of a patient subsequently found to have
VRE were at a significantly increased risk for acquiring VRE (hazard ratio, 18.8,
95% CI, 5.37-66.15; P < .001). However, patients admitted to the same bed number of previously known VRE-colonized
patient were not at increased risk of VRE acquisition (hazard ratio, 0.37, 95% CI,
0.11-1.22; P = .10).
Conclusion
We did not observe a statistically significant reduction in the rate of VRE colonization
in association with the use of 2% CHG-impregnated washcloths among hematology–oncology
patients.
Key words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: September 13, 2012
Footnotes
PB and SK contributed equally to this article.
Conflict of interest: An unrestricted travel grant was received from the supplier of the chlorhexidine-impregnated washcloths (AMCLA P/L) to support presentation of interim results at the Hospital Infection Society annual meeting. The supplier did not have any role in the study design or analysis, nor the decision for publication.
Identification
Copyright
© 2013 Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
