The Effect of Implementation of Bundle for Preventing Blood Culture Contamination in Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

Infections are never as frequent and life-threatening as in the neonatal period. The lack of sepsis-specific findings in the neonatal period, the narrow repertoire of clinical findings in newborns, and the fact that non-infectious clinical conditions frequently encountered in this period have similar findings pose a serious problem for early diagnosis and treatment of neonatal sepsis. Another important problem is that early empirical antibiotic treatment without diagnostic confirmation has to be resorted to very frequently in order to avoid morbidity and more importantly mortality with early intervention. This leads to unnecessary and prolonged treatment of newborns with potentially dangerous broad-spectrum antibiotics as well as prolonged hospitalizations and significant costs.

The rate of contaminated blood culture in the neonatal period is 2.6-18%. In this study, investigators aimed to evaluate the impact of blood culture bundles on the incidence of contamination in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).

Inclusion criteria

Newborns diagnosed with sepsis

Exclusion criteria

Newborns receiving antibiotic treatment