Single rooms in hospitals is not enough to prevent gastroenteritis

Nordic School of Public HealthDec 13 2011

To offer patients single rooms in hospitals is not enough to prevent gastroenteritis. That is shown in a master thesis at Nordic School of Public Health NHV.

There must be more preventive measures, where single rooms can be one, to prevent the spreading of infectious diarrhea, says Anita Wang Børseth, Master of Public Health.

The hygiene nurse Anita Wang Børseth master's study is titled Private rooms, an infection and disease prevention in hospitals? The purpose was to see if single rooms to reduce infection. It is mapping the incidence of the infectious intestinal disease Clostrium difficile in hospitalized patients in four Norwegian hospitals between 2001-2010.

The analysis included to look into if the moving of patients from an old hospital building with a few single rooms, to a new hospital building with only single rooms, was reducing the incidence Clostrium difficile, which can cause diarrhea.

The proportion of single rooms has increased during the study period, but this master theisis has not shown an infection preventive effect according to the occurrence of Clostrium difficile. Although no correlation between single rooms and the spread of infection among patients could not be detected.

But it can be possible that single room is increasing the risk for infection among the health professionals, says Anita Wang Børseth.

There was great disparity in incidence between the four major Norwegian hospitals that participated in this study.

The risk of infection appears to be higher in the old hospital, although this could not be detected with statistical significance.

The conclusion is that there must be more preventive measures, where single rooms can be one measure to prevent the spread of infectious diarrhea says Anita Wang Børseth.