Researchers studied 138 children from eight U.S. sites from October 2014 to February 2016. The children were between the ages of 1 and 5 years with a positive C. diff stool specimen collected as an outpatient or within three days of hospitalization. The children had not been admitted to a healthcare facility in the prior 12 weeks and had no history of CDI. The children were matched to one randomly selected control by site and age group.
The study shows a significantly higher proportion of study participants than controls had:
● An underlying chronic medical condition (33.3 percent versus 11.9 percent of controls)
● A neonatal intensive care unit stay at time of birth (26.9 percent versus 13.2 percent)
● Recent antibiotic exposure (53.6 percent versus 20.6 percent)
● Recent higher-risk outpatient healthcare exposures (34.9 percent versus 19.1 percent)
● A household member with diarrhea (36.2 percent versus 20.6 percent)
Researchers found no difference in the proportion of study participants and controls who had a feeding tube or a recent exposure to gastric acid suppressants.
“Improving outpatient antibiotic use, particularly among children with comorbidities, might reduce CA-CDI in this population,” study authors concluded.
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