ArticleCritical care (London, England)2021
The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the epidemiology of positive blood cultures in Swiss intensive care units: a nationwide surveillance study.
Article in Critical care (London, England), 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed.
- Bloodstream Infections in Critical Care Units in England, April 2017 to March 2023: Results from the First Six Years of a National Surveillance Programme.Microorganisms · 2025Article
- Interrupted-time-series analysis of the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on blood culture utilization in Shanghai.BMC infectious diseases · 2025Article
- Secondary Bacterial Infections in Critically Ill COVID-19 Patients Admitted in the Intensive Care Unit of a Tertiary Hospital in Romania.Journal of clinical medicine · 2024Article
- Microbiology of bloodstream infections in Ontario, Canada during COVID-19 pandemic.Canada communicable disease report = Releve des maladies transmissibles au Canada · 2024Article
- The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on blood culture practices and bloodstream infections.Microbiology spectrum · 2023Article
- Blood Stream Infections in COVID-19 Patients From a Tertiary Care Center in Lebanon: Causative Pathogens and Rates of Multi-Drug Resistant Organisms.Mayo Clinic proceedings. Innovations, quality & outcomes · 2023Article
- Incremental costs of hospital-acquired infections in COVID-19 patients in an adult intensive care unit of a tertiary hospital from a low-resource setting.Antimicrobial resistance and infection control · 2023Article
- Review
- Microbiology Clinical Culture Diagnostic Yields and Antimicrobial Resistance Proportions before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic in an Indian Community Hospital and Two US Community Hospitals.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Different epidemiology of bloodstream infections in COVID-19 compared to non-COVID-19 critically ill patients: a descriptive analysis of the Eurobact II study.Critical care (London, England) · 2022Observational
- Clinical Characteristics Associated with Bacterial Bloodstream Coinfection in COVID-19.Infectious diseases and therapy · 2022Article
- No increase of device associated infections in German intensive care units during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.Antimicrobial resistance and infection control · 2022Article
- The changing pattern of bacterial and fungal respiratory isolates in patients with and without COVID-19 admitted to intensive care unit.BMC infectious diseases · 2022Observational
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundEvidence about the impact of the pandemic of COVID-19 on the incidence rates of blood cultures contaminations and bloodstream infections in intensive care units (ICUs) remains scant. The objective of this study was to investigate the nationwide epidemiology of positive blood cultures drawn in ICUs during the first two pandemic waves of COVID-19 in Switzerland.
methodsWe analyzed data on positive blood cultures among ICU patients, prospectively collected through a nationwide surveillance system (ANRESIS), from March 30, 2020, to May 31, 2021, a 14-month timeframe that included a first wave of COVID-19, which affected the French and Italian-speaking regions, an interim period (summer 2020) and a second wave that affected the entire country. We used the number of ICU patient-days provided by the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health as denominator to calculate incidence rates of blood culture contaminations and bloodstream infections (ICU-BSI). Incidence rate ratios comparing the interim period with the second wave were determined by segmented Poisson regression models.
resultsA total of 1099 blood culture contaminations and 1616 ICU-BSIs were identified in 52 ICUs during the study. Overall, more episodes of blood culture contaminations and ICU-BSI were observed during the pandemic waves, compared to the interim period. The proportions of blood culture contaminations and ICU-BSI were positively associated with the ICU occupancy rate, which was higher during the COVID-19 waves. During the more representative second wave (versus interim period), we observed an increased incidence of blood culture contaminations (IRR 1.57, 95% CI 1.16-2.12) and ICU-BSI (IRR 1.20, 95% CI 1.03-1.39).
conclusionsAn increase in blood culture contaminations and ICU-BSIs was observed during the second COVID-19 pandemic wave, especially in months when the ICU burden of COVID-19 patients was high.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.