Background
The Infection Recommendations for Patients with Cystic Fibrosis (CF) were initially published in 2003 [
1] and recently updated as Infection Prevention and Control (IP&C) Guideline for CF: 2013 Update [
2] in response to the emerging evidence of CF respiratory pathogen transmission. The guidelines outline recommendations to reduce cross-infection in CF centers, although some of the recommendations have been debated in CF medical and lay communities [
3,
4]. Furthermore, the implementation of these recommendations may be limited by logistical, resource and hospital infrastructure constraints.
Recently, the results of a US–based survey about the uptake of the IP&C guidelines focussing on education and quality improvement activities have been published [
5]. The authors reported many of the updated recommendations had been adopted in US CF centers [
5] however, the adoption of the IP&C recommendations outside of the US is unknown. We aimed to investigate the current infection control practices used in Australian and New Zealand CF centers including a focus on logistics of care, mask wear and cleaning.
Discussion
The key finding from our study was that almost all respondents from CF centers in Australia and New Zealand had implemented and followed CF-specific infection control guidelines based predominantly on the current IP&C recommendations [
2]. In a recent survey of US CF centers, half of the centers had adopted ≥75% of the selected IP&C recommendations [
5]. While the two surveys (ours and the US) had differing approaches, the key message is that many of the Australian, New Zealand and US CF-centers have implemented infection control strategies based upon the published IP&C recommendations [
2]. The adoption of IP&C recommendations surveyed in Australian and New Zealand CF centers were similar between center type (pediatric-treating vs adult-treating) and center size (≤200 patients vs > 200 patients), which was similar to the results of the US survey [
5]. Regional differences in the adoption of IP&C recommendations were found in the US-based survey [
5]; however, we did not analyse the regional differences due to the very different healthcare models used between the two countries: Australia has 24 specialised CF centers that care for > 3400 people with CF [
6] whereas New Zealand has 27 specialised CF centers that care for ~ 500 people with CF [
7].
Physical barriers were outlined in the current IP&C to prevent cross-infection in CF centers such as the use of contact precautions and segregation of people with CF during hospital visits [
2]. Contact precaution use was similar between CF center type when reviewing admitted and ambulatory care patients, yet an important finding was the overall low rates for the ambulatory care setting, and that this was greatest in the New Zealand based centers. One exception was that adult-treating CF center respondents applied contact precautions more often when reviewing all CF inpatients compared to their pediatric counterparts. The use of contact precautions in CF centers with ≤200 patients was also more variable. Australian CF center respondents were more likely to follow contact precautions both when reviewing hospitalized and ambulatory care patients. However, reviewing CF inpatients with MRSA infection was an exception and contact precaution use was similar across the different locations; most likely due to established guidelines when caring for any inpatient with MRSA infection [
8]. The smaller CF centers and New Zealand centers may not follow the application of contact precautions during ambulatory clinics due to a perceived view of low cross-infection risk; for example, one person with CF may attend an ambulatory clinic session. Overall, the use of contact precautions in Australian and New Zealand CF centers was less common compared to the rates in US CF centers which reported 90% of centers use contact precautions when reviewing all people with CF (inpatient and ambulatory care settings) [
9].
The segregation of people with CF during hospital visits (both inpatient and ambulatory care settings) was adopted in the majority of Australian and New Zealand CF centers despite it being costly and logistically challenging. The use of single rooms with ensuites for inpatient accommodation was lower in Australian and New Zealand CF centers (~ 60%) compared with German CF centers where 81% of CF inpatients were accommodated in a single room with an adjacent bathroom [
10]. Most importantly, no CF center respondents in our study reported people with CF sharing inpatient rooms with another person with CF. Though in the ambulatory care setting, one-quarter of the CF center respondents continued to use shared waiting areas without formal segregation. Prior studies have demonstrated that enhanced cohort segregation has led to reduced rates of shared strain
Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection [
11‐
14]. Our results highlight the potential opportunities for cross-infection in a proportion of CF centers using shared ambulatory care waiting areas.
To prevent cross-infection in CF centers, face masks are recommended to be worn by people with CF to reduce dispersion of CF respiratory pathogens [
2]. The majority (61%) of Australian and New Zealand CF center respondents had implemented a patient mask-wear policy. While this rate is similar to a recently published study of German CF centers where 60% supplied masks at the entrance to the ambulatory clinics [
10], a US study reported patient-mask wear adoption rates of 85% in inpatient and 87% in ambulatory settings [
9]. The low adoption rates of patient-mask wear policies in Australian and New Zealand CF centers is surprising considering hospitals almost universally require people with respiratory illness symptoms to wear a surgical mask while in a hospital facility [
8]. However, patient-mask wear policies have been a contentious issue in the CF community [
15], which may point to variable uptake of mask wear in CF centers. For those respondents which had implemented a patient-mask wear policy, surgical masks were the most common form of source control used in Australian and New Zealand CF centers. While the IP&C recommendations do not recommend that respirators be worn by people with CF as source control [
2], a small number (< 10%) of Australian and New Zealand CF centers did use N95 masks as source control. The low uptake of N95 masks as source control is likely due to the poor comfort of N95 masks reported by people with CF [
16,
17].
The cleanliness of the hospital environment, frequency of cleaning such as daily cleaning of inpatient rooms [
18‐
20] and cleaning of ambulatory care settings [
21] has been reported to reduce hospital cross-infections. The implementation of cleaning procedures into CF centers is recommended to prevent CF pathogen acquisition [
2]. The majority of CF center respondents from Australia and New Zealand cleaned inpatient rooms on a daily basis and most CF centers cleaned ambulatory care consult rooms both between patients and at the end of the clinic session. In the US survey, more than three-quarters of the ambulatory care rooms were reported to be cleaned [
5] although the timing of the cleaning protocol (e.g. between patients, at the end of the day, etc) was not reported.
Our study also surveyed CF physiotherapists about the uptake of the IP&C recommendations especially the delivery of exercise sessions, an integral component of CF treatment [
22]. Physiotherapy respondents delivered gym-based exercise mostly as individual patient sessions. Furthermore, the gyms were cleaned between every patient and the physiotherapist was most often involved in the cleaning (either solely or in combination with other staff). Interestingly, one CF center respondent that the patient assisted with cleaning of the gym equipment and this supports the findings of an earlier study that reported engagement of people with CF may enhance patient adherence to infection control measures [
23].
The impact on people with CF and their families when implementing these enhanced IP&C recommendations in CF centers [
2] must also be considered. The most recent IP&C guidelines included consultation with three parents of children with CF and an adult with CF along with CF healthcare experts [
2]. While patient engagement in developing and implementing changes to IP&C guidelines should remain a priority, the knowledge levels in the wider CF community can vary and ongoing education of the CF community should also be prioritised. Furthermore, the debate in the medical community around appropriate infection control measure to implement in CF centers [
3,
4] and the lack of understanding of how CF respiratory pathogens are acquired can heighten anxiety in people with CF and their families [
24,
25]. Some recommendations are accepted into the CF community despite the associated negative consequences. For example, segregation is supported in the CF community, although the psychosocial effects of segregating patients can be considerable [
26,
27].
There were a number of limitations to this study. Firstly, all survey questions were optional (including the identifying questions) to enhance honest survey responses which may have resulted in frank feedback about local infection control policies and practices. The same survey was sent to Center Directors’ and Lead Nurses’ with no identifier to differentiate which discipline responded (medical or nursing). Additionally, the site identifier was an optional question and the majority of medical/nursing respondents did not answer or did not provide sufficient details to identify the individual site. The bias due to responses from both parties on key outcomes is unknown as we cannot assume both parties responded for each CF center. Interpretation of results for center type or center size comparisons has thus always been in reference to the responses reported for each category. Secondly, only 60% of invited survey participants responded to the survey which may influence the generalisability of the survey results to all CF centers [
28]. Thirdly, Australian and New Zealand CF centers function with very different models of care and while care has been taken to remove these influencing factors, it is unable to be eliminated from the data collection, analysis, and interpretation and may have biased the survey results. Finally, the impact of implementing the IP&C recommendations into CF centres on people with CF and their families has not been evaluated here and requires additional study, yet is an important aspect in effectively implementing the IP&C recommendations [
5].
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