Healthcare-associated infections are a major public health problem worldwide. The objective of our work was to determine the prevalence of these infections and the main risk factors in the University Hospital Establishment of Oran.

A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted at the EHUO from April 27, 2014 to May 6, 2014. The study included all patients hospitalized on the day of the survey. All infectious sites were considered.

Five hundred (500) patients were included in the study. Forty-eight (48) healthcare-associated infections were recorded that is to say a rate of 9.6% [8.8 to 10.4] for healthcare-associated infections. Urinary tract infections represented 47.9% of documented infections sites followed by pneumonia (18.8%). Exposure to certain medical invasive devices were significantly associated with the occurrence of healthcare-associated infections: intubation and/or tracheotomy (OR=10.3 [4.5 to 23.8], P<0.001), the urinary catheter (OR=4.9 [2.6 to 9.6], P<0.001) and central venous catheterization (OR=7.6 [3.7 to 15.9]; P<0.001). Acinetobacter baumannii was the most frequently isolated germ (21.2%) with 80% of strains with simultaneous resistance to imipenem and ceftazidime.

The prevalence rate recorded in our study does not deviate too much from the range found in the majority of studies in Europe. Periodically conducting prevalence surveys allows us to track annual trends of healthcare-associated infections and bacterial resistance to antibiotics.