Measuring dynamic social contacts in a rehabilitation hospital: effect of wards, patient and staff characteristics.

ABSTRACT: Understanding transmission routes of hospital-acquired infections (HAI) is key to improve their control. In this context, describing and analyzing dynamic inter-individual contact patterns in hospitals is essential. In this study, we used wearable sensors to detect Close Proximity Interactions (CPIs) among patients and hospital staff in a 200-bed long-term care facility over 4 months. First, the dynamic CPI data was described in terms of contact frequency and duration per individual status or activity and per ward. Second, we investigated the individual factors associated with high contact frequency or duration using generalized linear mixed-effect models to account for inter-ward heterogeneity. Hospital porters and physicians had the highest daily number of distinct contacts, making them

SUBMITTER: Duval A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5786108 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature