Annual Antibiotic Related Economic Burden of Healthcare Associated Infections; a Cross-Sectional Population Based Study

Abstract: So far, too little attention has been paid to total burden of healthcare associated infections (HAIs) in Iran. In present study, we aimed to assess the rate of HAIs, as well as economic burden of hospitalization and antibiotic related cost associated with HAIs at training Taleghani hospital in Iran and to compare our results with NNIS system. This research to date for the first time has tended to focus on the burden of HAIs rather than epidemiology of HAIs evaluation. The total of 474 patients was followed up in this study. Overall, the rate of HAIs was 19.2% in which ventilator associated pneumonia (VAP) was dominant HAIs and followed by UTI. Importantly, mortality rate was increased significantly at infected patients. The highest total hospitalization burden and antibiotic related cost was observed for patients with BSI. The results were demonstrated significant differences between antibiotic related cost at patients and uninfected patients. Antibiotic related absolute extra cost for HAIs was 2.09 $ per day. Estimation of direct annually HAIs associated economic burden of antibiotic and Total hospitalization was 433,382.4 $ and 705,024 $ respectively in Iran. The most obvious finding was that, a strong relationship between relatively heavy antibiotic related financial burden, higher mortality rate, longer hospitalization time and HAIs emergence on the Iranian national health system. It also reflects, more fundamentally a shift toward the need for comprehensive thinking about HAIs at ICU ward from Iran’s hospitals.