Association between the number of blood cultures and appropriateness of care for suspected bacteremic urinary tract infection in the elderly

The objective of this study was to evaluate the association between the number of blood cultures collected and the appropriateness of care for suspected bacteremic community-acquired urinary tract infection (UTI) in the elderly. We retrospectively evaluated the medical records of 129 patients with UTI < 65 years old admitted to a large community-based training hospital in Japan from 1 January 2006 to 31 December 2009. We assessed the association between the number of blood cultures collected and the appropriateness of care received, as well as other factors. Two-thirds of the patients were women, and patients >85 years old accounted for 45.0% of the cases. Most of the organisms isolated from the urine and blood were Escherichia coli (65.4-67.0%). More than two blood cultures were collected 79.1% of the time, and 66.7% of the cases were evaluated as having been treated appropriately. The appropriateness of care was not significantly related to the number of blood cultures. The appropriateness of care received in the general internal medicine department was significantly higher (p = 0.016) than that in other departments. Thus, the appropriateness of care for suspected bacteremic UTI in the elderly was not significantly associated with the number of blood cultures. However, the department of hospitalization may have influenced the appropriateness of care.