Intensive care units (ICUs) are important departmants at the hospital for nosocomial infections. Although an ICU has 5%-10% of the hospital beds, 25%-50% of the nosocomial infections originate from the ICU (1,2). Both ventilator-related pneumonia (VRP) and catheter-related urinary tract infections (CRUIs) are the most common infections in the ICU (3). Many risk factors are responsible for nosocomial infection in the ICU (1,4). Some of the risk factos are related to the patient, whereas the others are related to the external factors (1,4). It is known that improving the risk factors decreases the infection, mortality, morbidity, and cost (1,3).The environmental conditions affect the infection rate in the ICU (5,6). The patient number in the room, being in single or multiple patient room, space in the room, and design of the room are important for infecton control in the ICU (2,5,6,7,8). Generally efficient airconditioning, filter, heat, and humidity systems are important for infection control at the hospital. These systems are more important than the others in some departments such as the ICU (9).
ABSTRACTIntensive care units (ICUs) are the most important departments of a hospital regarding nosocomial infections. Many risk factors contribute to the infection rates in ICUs. These risk factors can be related to the patient or environment. Environmental conditions are important in infection control. Nurse/patient ratio has been shown to be related to nosocomial infection rates. This study aimed to investigate the effects of some of these factors on nosocomial infection rates in ICUs.The effects of changes in environmental conditions, such as area around the patient bed, temperature, humidity, and nurse/ patient rates on nosocomial infection rates were examined retrospectively in the ICU from January 2012 to June 2014 in this study.The total infection rate, ventilator associated pneumonia rate, and catheter-related urinary tract infection rate were found to be 7.67%, 14.53%, and 5.47%, respectively. Despite a statistically significant relationship between all infection rates and the size of the area around the patient bed, no relationship was detected between the nurse/patient rates and the infection rates. Between temperature and humidity, only humidity had a statistically significant relationship with catheterrelated urinary tract infection rates.Nurse/patient ratio is important in ICUs but the other factors related to the quality of the work and infection control are also important. The size of the area around the patient bed has been shown to have an important effect on infection control. This study reported a direct relationship of the size of the area around the patient bed with the infection rates. More studies are needed to evaluate the relationship between temperature and humidity and nosocomial infection rates.
