Clostridium difficile Infection Relationship to Ward-Monthly Antimicrobial Use Density and Days of Treatment: A Three-Year Study

Abstract

 The purpose was to evaluate the effect of antimicrobial use density (AUD) on Clostridium difficile infection (CDI).
 Monthly ward data included AUDs of parenteral antimicrobials for three years.
 For a total of 129 CDI patients, multivariate analysis showed that pediatric and obstetrics wards (odds ratio [95% confidence interval], 0.119 [0.024-0.585]; p=0.009) and AUDs of cefazolin (0.377 [0.207-0.687]; p=0.001), flomoxef (0.531 [0.294-0.961]; p=0.036), and ceftazidime (2.038 [1.072-3.874]; p=0.030) were significant.
 AUDs carrying risk of CDI await further analysis.