Table 1 Overview of patient characteristics abstracted from the medical records of Clostridium difficile cases and controls in a long-term psychogeriatric health care institute, Belgium 2011
General patient characteristics: | |
Age | (years) at admission |
Body Mass Index (BMI) | (kg/m2) at admission |
Frailty index (FI) | at admission and at discharge according to Drubbel et al. [9] (scaling between 1 and 0, 0 being perfectly healthy) |
Nutritional status | (mg/dL or g/L) at admission based on prealbumine: (<20 mg/dl = malnutrition, >20 mg/dL = normal). If not available, based on total protein: <5,0 g/L malnutrition, >5,0 g/L normal) [10] |
Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) | (x/30) during stay to assess the cognitive functioning. MMSE below 21/30 is a usual cut-off to define dementia [11] |
CDI specific characteristics: | |
Interval between admission and infection | (days), the date at which lab results confirm the clinical diagnosis is taken as the date of infection |
Length of stay | (days) between admission and discharge |
Type of treatment for CDI | metronidazole or vancomycin |
Length of CDI treatment | (days) |
Mortality | (%) |
Literature reported CDI risk factors: | |
Type of residency | one month prior to admission, i.e. previous health care exposure (acute hospital, nursing home, LTCF) |
Number and type of antibiotics | used one month prior to CDI |
Antacids | used at admission (proton pump inhibitor or histamin-2 blockers or none) |
Number of narcotics | used at admission |
Diabetes mellitus type 2 | at admission (yes/no) |