[Health-care associated pneumonia]

Health-care associated pneumonia (HCAP) is defined as pneumonia that develops in patients with a history of recent hospitalization, hemodialysis as an outpatient, residence in a nursing home, outpatient intravenous therapy and home wound care.

We retrospectively assessed patients who have been hospitalized in Department of Chest Diseases, Akdeniz University, Faculty of Medicine due to HCAP between 1 January 2009 and 1 June 2012. Of the total 195 pneumonia cases, 76 (38.9%) was HCAP and 119 (61.1%) was CAP.

Among HCAP cases, 61 (80.3%) had recent hospitalisation in the last 90 days, 7 (9.2%) went under hemodialysis in the last 30 days, 3 (3.9%) had a history of decubitus management in house, 1 (1.3%) had a long term accomodation in social-care center and 1 (1.3%) had a history of infusion therapy at home. Comorbidity in HCAP group was higher than CAP group (94.6% vs resp. 73.1%; p< 0.001) and mean PSI scores were also higher in HCAP group (104.4 - 90.2; p< 0.05). A causative microorganism was detected in 18 HCAP (23.6%) and in 11 CAP (9.2%) cases. It was determined that appropriate treatment was started in 73.7% of HCAP cases and 98.3% of CAP cases according to national and international guidelines (p< 0.001). Both mean hospitalization duration (12.7 ± 1.1 vs 7.8 ± 0.5 days, resp; p< 0.05) and mortality rates (22.4% vs 4.2%; p< 0.001) were higher in HCAP group. Furthermore, mean cost of hospitalization was also greater for HCAP group than CAP group (4150.6 ± 892 TL vs 2078.7 ± 571 TL; respectively p< 0.05).

In conclusion; patient characteristics, comorbidity status, causative organisms, duration and cost of hospitalization and prognosis of patients with HCAP was different from patients with CAP.