Prevalence of nasal carriage of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in patients at hospital admission in The Netherlands, 2010–2017: an observational study
Methods: We conducted an observational study to determine the prevalence of MRSA nasal carriage among patients who were screened preoperatively for nasal S. aureus carriage between 2010 and 2017. Samples of cardiothoracic patients were tested by polymerase chain reaction (PCR), other samples were cultured using chromogenic agar plates. A Poisson regression model with robust error variance was used to assess whether there was a trend in the prevalence of MRSA over time.
Results: In total, 31 093 nasal swabs were obtained from 25 660 patients. Three-hundred and seventy-five swabs (1.2%) had an invalid result. Therefore, 30 718 swabs (98.8%) were included in our analysis. Overall, S. aureus was detected in 7981/30 718 patients (26.0% 95% CI 25.5–26.5%) of whom 41 were MRSA (0.13% 95% CI 0.10–0.18%). The MRSA prevalence varied from 0.03% to 0.17% over the years without evidence of a changing trend over time (p = 0.40). Results of the questionnaire revealed that 30 of the 41 patients (73.2%) had no known risk factors for MRSA carriage (0.10%; 95% CI 0.07–0.14%).
- 1. Department of Infection Control, Amphia Hospital, P.O. Box 90158, 4800 AK Breda, the Netherlands
- 2. Medical Microbiology, Radboud University Medical Centre, P.O. Box 9101, 6500 HB Nijmegen, the Netherlands
- 3. Laboratory for Microbiology, Admiraal De Ruyter Hospital, P.O. Box 15, 4460 AA Goes, the Netherlands
- 4. Microvida Laboratory for Microbiology, Amphia Hospital, P.O. Box 90158, Breda, the Netherlands
- 4. Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Center Utrecht, P.O. Box 85500 3508 GA, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands