Hospitalizations Among Family Members Increase Risk for MRSA Infection

TUESDAY, Aug. 13, 2024 (HealthDay News) — There is a significant association between hospitalized patients returning home and an increased risk of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections among their family members, according to a study published online Aug. 7 in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology.

Aaron C. Miller, Ph.D., from the University of Iowa in Iowa City, and colleagues estimated the risk for household transmission of MRSA following exposure to infected family members or those recently discharged from a hospital without an MRSA diagnosis. A monthly incidence model was estimated, with enrollees binned into monthly enrollment strata defined by demographic, patient, and exposure characteristics. Monthly incidence was computed within each stratum.

Data were included for 157,944,708 enrollees, with a total of 424,512 cases of MRSA. The researchers found that exposure to a family member with MRSA in the prior 30 days was associated with a significantly increased risk for infection (incidence rate ratio, 71.03) across all enrollees. After exclusion of enrollees who were hospitalized or exposed to a family member with MRSA, the risk for infection was increased with exposure to a family member who was recently discharged from the hospital (incidence rate ratio, 1.44); the risk for infection increased with duration of the hospital stay of the family member.

“We also found that risk increased when one or more household members were discharged from a hospital without an MRSA diagnosis, suggesting that some proportion of patients without an MRSA diagnosis are likely colonized with MRSA during their hospital stay,” the authors write.

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