Journal of preventive medicine and hygiene
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The number of patients with severe Clostridium difficile-associated diarrhoea (CDAD) increases. Health care facilities are requested to establish rates of nosocomially acquired CDAD (N-CDAD) to understand the impact of control or prevention measures, and the burden of N-CDAD on health care resources. ⋯ This single-center surveillance project, which established N-CDAD rates at frequencies currently reported from international surveys, is useful as benchmark and will help in understanding patterns and impact of N-CDAD at the regional level.
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Accidents in the home are a major public health issue in most industrialised countries, as they are a frequent cause of injury and death. Moreover, since a considerable portion of such accidents involve elderly people, it is important to assess their social impact in this population. In Italy, the available data indicate that well over 3 million people per year suffer accidents in the home, and that this number is rising. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the number, characteristics and causes of domestic accidents among the elderly. ⋯ The data collected during this survey are in line with those yielded by national and international studies. They show that the elderly are very vulnerable to domestic accidents and that, even in the event of only slight injury, the management of elderly victims requires a strong organisational commitment on the part of relatives and considerable financial resources for healthcare services. Falling proved to be the main cause of injury. Clearly, efforts to reduce the cost of accidents in the home should aim to implement preventive intervention among elderly people, since the elderly population is destined to grow as a result of increasing life expectancy. In particular, preventive action should focus on reducing the incidence of falls by eliminating risk-related structural features in domestic settings as far as possible and by raising public awareness of the problem through health education campaigns.
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Most nosocomial infections are thought to be transmitted by the hands of health care workers. The aim of this work was to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice of hand washing among health care workers (HCW) in Ain-Shams University hospitals and to investigate the presence of the necessary facilities and supplies required for hand washing (HW) in ten wards. A cross-sectional descriptive and observational study was conducted for six months from June till November 2006. ⋯ The mean knowledge score was higher in nurses compared to doctors (42.6 +/- 1.7 versus 39.1 +/- 10.5). Most of the nurses (97.3%) believe that administrative orders and continuous observation can improve hand washing practices. Implementation of multifaceted interventional behavioral hand hygiene program with continuous monitoring and performance feedback, increasing the supplies necessary for HW and institutional support are important for improving the compliance of hand hygiene guidelines.