Risk assessment and standardized nosocomial infection rate in critically ill children.

Objectives: To develop and validate a pediatric nosocomial infection risk (PNIR) assessment model, and to compare the daily trends in risk factors between patients with nosocomial infection (cases) and without nosocomial infection (controls) in the pediatric intensive care unit (ICU).

Design: Prospective cohort.

Setting: A 16-bed pediatric ICU in an urban, university-affiliated, multidisciplinary, regional referral center.

Nosocomial enterococcal infections in children.

Objectives: To identify factors that are associated with an increased risk of nosocomial enterococcal infection in children.

Methods: A matched case-control study was conducted between January 1989 and July 1993 at the Children's National Medical Center, Washington DC. One control patient for each case was identified.

Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium colonization in children.

Nosocomial vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE) infections have been described in only small numbers of pediatric patients. In none of these studies were multivariate analyses performed to assess which factors were independent risk factors in these patients. In the present cohort study of patients admitted to our hematology/oncology unit, surveillance cultures revealed a colonization rate of 24% and all isolates were identified as Enterococcus faecium.

Risk factors for nosocomial infection in critically ill children: a prospective cohort study.

Objective: To identify factors in pediatric intensive care unit (ICU) patients that are associated with an increased risk of nosocomial infections.

Design: A prospective, 1-yr cohort study.

Setting: A 16-bed pediatric ICU in a multidisciplinary, regional referral center.