Background: The aim of the study was to describe the epidemiology, clinical features, antimicrobial treatment, and outcomes of bedridden pneumonia patients receiving home healthcare.
Methods: A 3-year prospective observational study of poor performance status (PS) 3-4 patients receiving long-term home healthcare and hospitalized at a single center with pneumonia between October 2010 and September 2013 was conducted, and their clinical characteristics were compared with non-bedridden community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) patients.
Results: A total of 131 CAP patients with PS 3-4, and 400 CAP patients with PS 0-2 were evaluated. The PS 3-4 patients were older, and exhibited a higher frequency of underlying diseases. Aspiration was thought to be associated with pneumonia in 77.1% of the PS 3-4 patients. Streptococcus pneumoniae was the leading pathogen in both groups, whereas the frequency of streptococci and polymicrobial infections was higher in the PS 3-4 group. The incidence of multidrug-resistant pathogens such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) or Pseudomonas aeruginosa was lower than in previous healthcare-associated pneumonia reports. The in-hospital mortality and recurrence rates were significantly higher in the PS 3-4 group than in the good PS group (17.6% vs. 6.0%, p < 0.001 and 15.3% vs. 7.5%, p = 0.008, respectively).
Conclusions: The clinical characteristics of pneumonia in poor PS patients were similar to healthcare-associated pneumonia (HCAP), except for the frequency of drug-resistant pathogens. Hence, it might be beneficial to categorize pneumonia in home residents with poor PS separately from pneumonia in CAP patients who were previously healthy or experienced mild comorbidities.
Keywords: Aspiration; Community-acquired pneumonia; Healthcare-associated pneumonia; Home care; Performance status.
Copyright © 2015 Japanese Society of Chemotherapy and The Japanese Association for Infectious Diseases. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.