Abstract:Objective To analyze the incidence and risk factors of hospital acquired infection (HAI) in the elderly patients with orthopaedic implant surgery, and to investigate the prevention and control countermeasures. Methods Clinical data of 1338 elderly patients underwent orthopaedic implant surgery in Guangzhou General Hospital from July 2013 to June 2015 were collected and analyzed retrospectively. The incidence and risk factors of HAI were studied and analyzed. Results There were 103 patients suffering from HAI, with an infection rate of 7.7%. The common sites of HAI were lower respiratory tract (36.97%), followed by urinary system (35.29%) and deep surgical site (10.08%). In the 116 obtained strains of pathogenic bacteria, multidrug resistant bacteria accounted for 63.79%, and the top 5 strains were Escherichia coli, Acinetobacter baumannii, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Enterococcus faecium. Univariate analysis showed gender, age, operation type, complicated basic diseases, operation time, intra-operative transfusion volume, length of hospital stay, preoperative hospitalization days, invasive procedure and American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) score were closely associated with HAI in the elderly receiving orthopaedic implants (P<0.05). Conclusion To decrease the incidence of HAI for the elderly patients with orthopaedic implant surgery, clinicians should pay attention to every aspect of orthopaedic surgery, that is, preoperatively, fully evaluating the conditions and effectively controling the underlying diseases in the patients; intra-operatively, trying to shorten the operation time and reducing blood loss and transfusion volume; and post-operatively, strengthening the process management for ventilator, central venous catheterization, urinary catheterization and other invasive procedures.