Inappropriate Use of Indwelling Urinary Catheters in Internal Medicine Patients

Indwelling catheters are commonly used in non-intensive care internal medicine patients. They are associated with significant side effects.

To determine the proportion of warranted indwelling catheters and factors associated with inappropriate use.

We included consecutive patients hospitalized in three internal medicine departments from 2020 to 2021. We determined the proportion of urinary catheters inserted in the emergency department that were retained inappropriately for monitoring urine outputs. The area under the curve (AUC) was used to determine the ability of the logistic regression model to predict inappropriate use of urinary catheterizations.

Of 11,542 patients, 625 (5.4%) were excluded because they were admitted with a permanent catheter. The urinary indwelling catheterization rate was 13.3% (1454/10,917), which was appropriate in 4.9% (n=533). Patients with an unjustified indwelling catheter had a 3.75-fold (95% confidence interval 3.2-4.4) increase of prolonged hospitalization. Approximately 13 cases of a catheter associated urinary tract infection and 9% (83/921) of those with an unjustified indwelling catheter were discharged with the catheter in place. Older age, female sex, nursing assessments of patient frailty, urinary tract diseases, congestive heart failure, respiratory tract, and infectious diseases were independently associated with inappropriate use (AUC 0.847, 95% confidence interval 0.841-0.854).

Indwelling urinary catheters are justified in less than 5% of non-intensive care internal medicine patients and associated with significant side effects. Efforts to reduce inappropriate catheterizations might focus on frail elderly patients with infections and those presenting with urinary tract diseases, congestive heart failure, respiratory tract, and other infectious diseases.