Incidence of urinary tract infections in patients with short-term indwelling urethral catheters: a comparison between a 3-day urinary drainage bag change and no change regimens.

Background: The current practice of caring for hospitalized patients with indwelling urethral catheters in Siriraj Hospital is to change the drainage bag every 3 days. In an extensive medical literature search, no evidence was noted to support this practice.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to compare the incidence of catheter-associated urinary tract infections (UTI) in hospitalized patients with indwelling catheters who receive a drainage bag change every 3 days with the incidence of UTI in patients who receive no bag change.