Universal screening for MRSA entails additional costs and there is no consensus for targeted screening for high-risk units. The aims of this study were to determine the prevalence of MRSA in geriatric care units and to identify the factors associated with this colonisation on admission.
This was a retrospective case-control study (1:1) in the geriatric care unit of six Belgian hospitals from 1 January, 2021 to 31 December, 2022. Cases were patients with a positive MRSA screening result within 48 hours of admission to the geriatric care unit and controls were patients with a negative screening result.
A total of 556 patients were included, 278 in each group. Prevalence per 100 admissions for the total sample was 2.3 (95%CI: 2.2-2.6). Significant multivariate factors associated with MRSA carriage on admission were history of MRSA, nursing home origin, and chronic skin lesions. Applying these three factors would give an area under the ROC curve of 0.73 (0.71-0.77) and would allow screening to be carried out in only 55.4% of cases (51.2%-59.6%).
Using these factors as screening criteria in geriatric care units could significantly reduce the number of patients screened for MRSA while maintaining satisfactory sensitivity and specificity.
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