The incidence, characteristics and in-hospital mortality of non-ventilator-associated hospital-acquired pneumonia in regional Queensland: A retrospective descriptive study.

Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the incidence, characteristics and in-hospital mortality of non-ventilator-associated hospital-acquired pneumonia (NV-HAP) in a regional (Modified Monash Model 2) Australian hospital.

Methods: All cases with NV-HAP were obtained from the Business Analysis and Decision Support (BADS) Unit between 1st January 2013 and 31st December 2018. Medical records were reviewed, and data pertaining to incidence, characteristics (age and gender), length of stay, co-morbidities (measured using the Charlson Comorbidity Index) and in-hospital mortality were extracted. Incidence rate was calculated as a proportion of NV-HAP cases per 1000 bed-days.

Design: A retrospective study design was used to review all cases of NV-HAP between 1 January 2013 and 31 December 2018 at a single regional Australian hospital. Using the Modified Monash Model (MMM), our regional setting is classified as a regional centre (MMM-2).

Setting: Rockhampton Hospital, Australia.

Participants: Patient cases.

Main Outcome Measures: Incidence rate, Incidence proportion, mortality.

Results: A total of 501 cases were identified with an incidence rate of 0.98 cases per 1000 bed-days over the study period 2013-2018. Cases with NV-HAP had a median age of 78.2 years (interquartile range 18.8), a median length of stay of 13.0 days (interquartile range 12.0) and a median Charlson Comorbidity Index score of 3.0 out of 39 (interquartile range 3.0), and a greater proportion was male (n = 297, 57%). The in-hospital mortality rate for NV-HAP cases was 18.9%.

Conclusion: This study revealed an overall incidence rate of 0.98 cases per 1000 bed-days from 2013 to 2018 in a regional Australian hospital. In addition, this study provided the descriptive characteristics for patients with NV-HAP at our regional hospital.