20.500.12556/DiRROS-27937 Blood culture contamination creep independent of COVID-19 pandemics an interrupted time-series analysis Background/Objectives: Our study aimed to assess longitudinal trends in blood culture contamination in a regional secondary care teaching hospital before and after the COVID-19 pandemic and to evaluate differences in the interpretation of trends using two distinct quasi-experimental statistical methods, including interrupted time-series analysis. Methods: We analyzed data from a 10-year period spanning from 2015 to 2024, encompassing 147,733 admissions and 634,158 patient-days, as well as a total of 25,068 blood cultures. The (i) blood culture contamination rate, (ii) contaminant proportion, (iii) single blood culture rate, and (iv) first-to-second bottle contamination ratio were calculated. Results: The observed usage rate of blood cultures per 1000 patient-days was 38.9. The contamination rate of blood cultures increased from 0.9% to 1.5% (p = 0.001) in the post-COVID-19 period, accompanied by a rise in the proportion of contaminant bacteria from 9.8% to 14.2% (p = 0.016). Additionally, the proportion of single blood culture collections increased from 23.1% to 33.6% (p < 0.001). Finally, the overall first-to-second bottle contamination ratio was 1.54, while the ratio in the post-COVID-19 period was 1.92. Conclusions: In a low-COVID-19-burden secondary care teaching hospital setting, blood culture contamination rates have progressively increased over the past decade, irrespective of the pandemic. These findings underscore the importance of sustained vigilance in infection prevention and control practices, strict adherence to blood culture collection protocols, and the ongoing need for staff training. blood culture blood culture contamination COVID-19 Slovenia interrupted time-series analysis krvna kultura kontaminacija krvne kulture Covid-19 Slovenija analiza prekinjene časovne vrste true false true Angleški jezik Slovenski jezik Neznano 2026-02-27 13:56:10 2026-02-27 13:56:10 2026-03-01 03:40:29 0000-00-00 00:00:00 2025 0 0 Nasl. z nasl. zaslona; Opis vira z dne 2. 1. 2025; Št. članka: 533; str. 1-11 iss. 6, [article no.] 533 Vol. 14 2025 0000-00-00 Zaloznikova Objavljeno NiDoloceno 0000-00-00 0000-00-00 0000-00-00 612.118 2079-6382 10.3390/antibiotics14060533 237088003 RAZ_Jeverica_Samo_2025.pdf RAZ_Jeverica_Samo_2025.pdf 1 C8A9DC0C1614BD6E259F0E4E3A5F22C8 3bdc51006a767c87a851081261122d1e5bdb627d1cd90344255ee545403e9e0f e33cf49d-13db-11f1-8c73-001a4af901a5 https://dirros.openscience.si/Dokument.php?lang=slv&id=41147 https://doi.org/10.3390/antibiotics14060533 1 b33eaa19-13db-11f1-8c73-001a4af901a5 https://dirros.openscience.si/Dokument.php?lang=slv&id=41146 Univerzitetni klinični center Ljubljana 0 0 0