This study used data from the health care records of patients who were admitted to one large referral hospital in the north of Jordan throughout the study period.

An expert nurse performed a complete chart review for each of the study cases. Nested within this cohort was a 1:1 matched case–control study that examined PD0332991 concentration the HCABSI risk factors. This large teaching hospital has a capacity of 683 beds. The acute care services are delivered through different types of intensive care units. The total capacity of the critical care unit is approximately 40 patients, including the pediatric intensive care unit. The sample was composed of adult patients who were admitted to the hospital during the study period. The following selection criteria were used: a. adult patient (aged 18 years and older); Adulthood was

used as a selection criterion based on reports suggesting that HCABSIs among children and infants represent a special problem in terms of incidence, risk factors, and other related issues [22], [23], [24] and [25]. This study utilized the well-recognized and accepted HCABSI definition that has been set by the CDC Metformin cell line [26]. Therefore, a laboratory-confirmed HCABSI was defined as a clinical infection in which at least one microorganism was isolated from a blood culture that was drawn at least 48 h after a patient admission, with no evidence of infection at the time of admission [27], [28] and [29]. In the cohort study, the infected patients were compared to

adult individuals who were hospitalized for more than 48 h, admitted to the same unit as the infected patient, and free of Thalidomide BSI at the time of admission and throughout their hospitalizations. The LOS in the comparison group was equal to the LOS (±5%) of the infected patient group before the blood cultures were drawn. In the nested case–control study, 125 patients who had confirmed HCABSIs and who met the selection were matched exactly 1:1 on age (except for 9 pairs for whom the matching was based on a mean age difference of ±7.9 years), gender, primary diagnosis for admission, type of admission unit (medical-surgical or critical care), and admission month. Descriptive and bivariate analyses: The analyses were conducted using SPSS®-PC Version 16. Frequencies, percentages, means, and standard deviations were used to describe the sample. Stata (version 10.0) was used for conditional logistic regression analyses. Incidence and case-fatality rates of HCABSIs for each year were manually calculated using the SPSS-generated frequencies and standard formulas [30]. In the current study, the incidence and mortality rates were calculated based on a denominator of all the eligible patients after applying the inclusion criteria (N = 54,918 adult admissions). The risk factors were determined based on cross-tabulations and a risk estimate computation.