The prevalence of Clostridioides difficile infections decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic, but inpatient mortality and treatment costs went up, a study published Aug. 25 in Open Forum Infectious Diseases found.
Researchers used the Premier Healthcare Database to compare Clostridioides difficile prevalence and inpatient outcomes in the pre-COVID-19 period, April 2019 to March 2020, and COVID-19 period, April 2020 to March 2021, for 25,991 patients.
Cases of Clostridioides difficile infections declined from 12.2 per 10,000 encounters pre-COVID-19 to 8.9 per 10,000 encounters during the pandemic. Despite the drop, patients did experience an uptick in inpatient mortality during the pandemic to 7.4 percent. Higher median encounter costs were also observed, with an average increase of approximately $2,000.