Introduction: Health-care associated pneumonia (HCAP) is defined as pneumonia that develops in patients with a history of recent hospitalization, hemodialysis as an outpatient, residence in a nursing home, outpatient intravenous therapy and home wound care.
Materials and methods: We retrospectively assessed patients who have been hospitalized in Department of Chest Diseases, Akdeniz University, Faculty of Medicine due to HCAP between 1 January 2009 and 1 June 2012. Of the total 195 pneumonia cases, 76 (38.9%) was HCAP and 119 (61.1%) was CAP.
Results: Among HCAP cases, 61 (80.3%) had recent hospitalisation in the last 90 days, 7 (9.2%) went under hemodialysis in the last 30 days, 3 (3.9%) had a history of decubitus management in house, 1 (1.3%) had a long term accomodation in social-care center and 1 (1.3%) had a history of infusion therapy at home. Comorbidity in HCAP group was higher than CAP group (94.6% vs resp. 73.1%; p< 0.001) and mean PSI scores were also higher in HCAP group (104.4 - 90.2; p< 0.05). A causative microorganism was detected in 18 HCAP (23.6%) and in 11 CAP (9.2%) cases. It was determined that appropriate treatment was started in 73.7% of HCAP cases and 98.3% of CAP cases according to national and international guidelines (p< 0.001). Both mean hospitalization duration (12.7 ± 1.1 vs 7.8 ± 0.5 days, resp; p< 0.05) and mortality rates (22.4% vs 4.2%; p< 0.001) were higher in HCAP group. Furthermore, mean cost of hospitalization was also greater for HCAP group than CAP group (4150.6 ± 892 TL vs 2078.7 ± 571 TL; respectively p< 0.05).
Conclusion: In conclusion; patient characteristics, comorbidity status, causative organisms, duration and cost of hospitalization and prognosis of patients with HCAP was different from patients with CAP.