BACKGROUND. In 1991, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention devised the National Nosocomial Infection Surveillance (NNIS) System risk index to stratify populations of surgical patients by the risk of acquiring surgical‐site infections (SSIs). OBJECTIVE. To determine whether the NNIS risk index adequately stratifies a population of cardiothoracic surgery patients by the risk of developing SSI. DESIGN . Case‐control study. SETTING . The University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, a 900‐bed, midwestern, tertiary‐care hospital. PATIENTS. 201 patients with SSIs identified by prospective infection control surveillance and 398 controls matched by age, gender, type of procedure, and date of procedure. All patients underwent cardiothoracic operative procedures between November 1990 and January 1994. RESULTS. The SSI rate was 7.8%. Seventy‐four percent of cases and 80% of controls had a NNIS risk index score of 1; 24% of cases and 16% of controls had a score of 2 (P=.05). Patients with a NNIS risk score ≥2 were 1.8 times more likely to develop an SSI than those with a NNIS score <2 (odds ratio, 1.83; 95% confidence interval, 1.14‐2.94, P=.01). The duration of the procedure was the only component of the index that stratified the population by risk of SSI. CONCLUSIONS. The risk of SSI after cardiothoracic operations increases as the NNIS risk index score increases. However, this index only dichotomized the patient population on the basis of the procedure duration. More research is needed to develop a risk index that adequately stratifies the risk of SSI after cardiothoracic operations.
Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology provides original, peer-reviewed scientific articles for anyone involved with an infection control or epidemiology program in a hospital or healthcare facility. Written by infection control practitioners and epidemiologists and guided by an editorial board composed of the nation's leaders in the field, ICHE provides a critical forum for this vital information.
Cambridge University Press (www.cambridge.org) is the publishing division of the University of Cambridge, one of the world’s leading research institutions and winner of 81 Nobel Prizes. Cambridge University Press is committed by its charter to disseminate knowledge as widely as possible across the globe. It publishes over 2,500 books a year for distribution in more than 200 countries. Cambridge Journals publishes over 250 peer-reviewed academic journals across a wide range of subject areas, in print and online. Many of these journals are the leading academic publications in their fields and together they form one of the most valuable and comprehensive bodies of research available today. For more information, visit http://journals.cambridge.org.
This item is part of a JSTOR Collection.
For terms and use, please refer to our
© 2000 by The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America. All rights reserved.