Practice Patterns of Health Care Providers to Assess, Treat, and Evaluate Urinary Tract Infections Among Residents of Long-term Care Facilities

Approximately two million individuals currently reside in 20,000 LTCFs in the United States. The CDC estimates that 1.5 million infections occur in LTCFs each year; this translates to an average of one infection per resident per year. UTI is the most common nosocomial infection among residents of LTCFs. The data from infection control programs of LTCFs have not been routinely analyzed for identification of problems or justification of current practice specific to health care providers. The purpose of this problem-focused study was to provide a detailed analysis of the practice patterns of health care providers in the assessment, treatment, and evaluation of treatment outcomes pertinent to UTI among elderly residents of LTCFs. The study also attempted to identify commonalties among resident characteristics that existed concomitantly with UTI. A retrospective review of two LTCF\u27s Infection Control Report forms was used to conduct this exploratory study. The purposive sample consisted of 62 subjects age 64 years or older who resided in one of two LTCFs. The subjects had a total of 93 chart-documented UTI occurrences between January 1998 - December 1998