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Epidemiological Model for Clostridium difficile Transmission in Healthcare Settings

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

C. Lanzas ,
E. R. Dubberke ,
Z. Lu ,
K. A. Reske  and
Y. T. Gröhn
C. Lanzas
Affiliation:
Department of Population Medicine and Diagnostic Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York Department of Comparative Medicine, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee
E. R. Dubberke
Affiliation:
Department of Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri
Z. Lu
Affiliation:
Department of Population Medicine and Diagnostic Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
K. A. Reske
Affiliation:
Department of Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri
Y. T. Gröhn
Affiliation:
Department of Population Medicine and Diagnostic Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
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Abstract

Objective.

Recent outbreaks of Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) have been difficult to control, and data indicate that the importance of different sources of transmission may have changed. Our objectives were to evaluate the contributions of asymptomatic and symptomatic C. difficile carriers to new colonizations and to determine the most important epidemiological factors influencing C. difficile transmission.

Design, Setting, and Patients.

Retrospective cohort study of all patients admitted to medical wards at a large tertiary care hospital in the United States in the calendar year 2008.

Methods.

Data from six medical wards and published literature were used to develop a compartmental model of C. difficile transmission. Patients could be in one of five transition states in the model: resistant to colonization (R), susceptible to colonization (S), asymptomatically colonized without protection against CDI (C-), asymptomatically colonized with protection against CDI (C+), and diseased (ie, with CDI; D).

Results.

The contributions of C-, C+, and D patients to new colonizations were similar. The simulated basic reproduction number ranged from 0.55 to 1.99, with a median of 1.04. These values suggest that transmission within the ward alone from patients with CDI cannot sustain new C. difficile colonizations and therefore that the admission of colonized patients plays an important role in sustaining transmission in the ward. The epidemiological parameters that ranked as the most influential were the proportion of admitted C- patients and the transmission coefficient for asymptomatic carriers.

Conclusion.

Our study underscores the need to further evaluate the role of asymptomatically colonized patients in C. difficile transmission in healthcare settings.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology , Volume 32 , Issue 6 , June 2011 , pp. 553 - 561
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America 2011

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