[Effectiveness of an educational program for reducing blood culture contamination]

Abstract

Introduction: Blood culture contaminations can lead to unnecessary diagnostic procedures and treatments, increasing workload, length of stay, and costs.

Objetives: Development of an educational program to reduce contamination rates.

Material and methods: Our study compared contamination rates (CR) between a pre-intervention period (Ppre) and post-intervention period (Ppos), where clinical charts from patients with positive blood cultures were reviewed. Intervention consisted of a questionnaire where knowledge of blood culture practice and its significance was assessed. Results are discussed and explained.

Results: A presentation on blood culture guidelines was discussed in every nurse station. There was a median of 64% (40.8-78.5) attendance rate. The median of correct answers was 69% in the Ppre (54.1-83.3) with 85.7% (83.3-100) in the Ppos, indicating an improvement in 85.7% of the departments that could be compared. There were 136 (4.2%) contaminants in the Ppre and 186 (6.05%) in the Ppos (P=.005). Among the different departments the average of CR varied from 5% vs 7.5% (P=.79) between 2011 and 2012. Only 2 departments reduced CR by 2% to 2.5%, the difference was not significant.

Conclusions: The intervention failed to reduce overall contamination rates, but knowledge of blood culture practice improved. Our results identified the errors that will help us to design a successful approach in future follow-up programs.

Keywords: Educational program; Programa educacional; Pseudobacteremia; Pseudobacteriemia; Reducción hemocultivos contaminados; Reducing blood cultures contamination.