A study published in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology examined the impact of universal contact precautions on multidrug-resistant organism rates in intensive care units.
Researchers used a comparative effectiveness approach to study the impact of universal contact precautions on multidrug-resistant organism incidence density rates, including:
• Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus
• Vancomycin-resistant enterococci
• Carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae
They examined data from a clinical research database between 2006 and 2014, comparing MDRO rates between the baseline period and the universal contact precautions period as well as MDRO rates in three ICUs with universal contact precautions to three ICUs without the precautions.
The study shows while MDRO rates decreased over time, there was no significant decrease in the trend during the universal contact precautions period compared to the baseline period.
Additionally, the three ICUs with universal contact precautions experienced a 6.6 percent decrease in MDRO rates per year versus a 6 percent decrease in non-universal contact precaution ICU units.
"The results of this nine-year study suggest decreases in MDROs, including multidrug-resistant gram-negative bacilli, were more likely due to hospital-wide improvements in infection prevention during this period, and [universal contact precautions] had no detectable additional impact," study authors concluded.