Abstract:

Background: Globally blood culture contamination is associated with misdiagnosis of the patient hence delay patient management, prolonged hospital stays, increased hospital cost and related morbidity among pediatric patients with bloodstream infections. Prevalence of contaminant can potentially used as the quality indicator for assessing and monitoring the quality of pediatric blood culture practices in clinical settings. The current study determined the prevalence of contaminant and associated factors among pediatric patients.

Methodology: A cross-sectional hospital-based study was conducted at Sekou Toure regional referral hospital from May to July 2024. The study enrolled 302 pediatric patients with clinical features suggestive of bloodstream infections. Blood culture samples were collected into brain heart infusion (BHI) broth followed by blind post-subcultures at 8 hours, 24 hours and 72 hours. Demographic data, clinical manifestation, laboratory findings were collected using structured data collection sheet. Data analysis was performed using statistics and data (STATA) software version 15.

Results: The median age of enrolled pediatric patients was 4 ± (0-12) years whereby majority were male (160, 52.3%) presented with signs and symptoms of bloodstream infections. About two third were inpatient 209 (69.2%). A total of 31(10.264%) blood samples were contaminated. The most predominant contaminants were Staphylococcus epidermidis 19(61.3%). Age of the child (OR 0.384, 95% CI 0.23-0.64, P=0.00), inconsistency septum disinfection (OR 12, 95% CI 2.1-74.8, P=0.05) and lack of ongoing training among phlebotomists (OR 31, 95% CI 8.3-117.1, P=0.00) were factors found to be associated with blood culture contamination.

Conclusions: The prevalence of blood culture contamination from pediatric departments at Sekou Toure regional referral hospital is above the acceptable standard. The contamination is highly associated with younger children, phlebotomist’s lack of refresher training and not using disinfectant during blood collection.

The study recommends the refresher training to phlebotomy at Sekou Toure regional referral hospital especially those involved in collection of blood from neonates.