Urinary tract infection :A less well-known winter risk?

Abstract

In the normal course of events associated with managing the care of older people, data are often gathered for a particular purpose, such as compliance with government regulations, which could be useful in enhancing local understanding of service operations such as standards of care. Benefits for both the organisation and service recipients can flow from a secondary or adjunct analysis of these data. In this instance, data gathered on urinary tract infection (UTI) in aged care homes in Australia and New Zealand are considered against a backdrop of environmental temperature change or seasons, producing patterns of UTI rates and suggesting a causal link. QPS Benchmarking involves over 500 facilities in Australia and New Zealand, where trend analysis is showing a higher rate of UTI occurring in colder areas in both countries as well as during colder months of the year. While the pattern is variable, it is quite common (35% of UTI participants) for cold climate facilities to experience higher UTI rates than wa...