Mrs. Yun-Ju Shih1
1Queensland Health, Brisbane, Australia
Biography:
Yun-Ju Shih is an Epidemiologist for the Queensland Infection and Prevention Control Unit, Queensland Health. Yun-Ju completed Master's in Epidemiology at National Taiwan University before moving to Australia. Yun-Ju is passionate about data-driven decision-making to improve the health of all. She specialises in disease modelling, data analysis, and applied Epidemiology.
Abstract:
Introduction
This study analyses the Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) data to identify the trends and epidemiology of both community-associated (CA) and healthcare-associated (HA) CDI in Queensland.
Method
All CDI episodes identified through Queensland Health (QH) hospital-based infection surveillance system from January 2015 to March 2025 were included in this study. Time series analysis was performed to examine the trend of CDI in Queensland public hospitals. Public hospital bed data were extracted from Queensland Hospital Admitted Patient Data Collection to calculate monthly rates of CDI.
Results
This study included 9,775 episodes of CDI from January 2015 to March 2025; 5,589 episodes were HA and 3,942 were CA. The median age of patients was 63 and 68 in CA-CDI and HA-CDI, respectively. The rate of all-diagnosis CDI in public hospitals ranged from 1.3 to 3.3 per 10,000 patient days. The rate of HA-CDI ranged from 1.0 to 1.6 per 10,000 patient days, with an increasing trend observed over the study period. The number of CA-CDI remained stable throughout the study period.
Conclusion
This study demonstrated an increasing trend of HA-CDI rates in Queensland public hospitals between 2015 and 2025. Although CA-CDI remained stable over time in this study, only hospital-identified CA-CDI were included in this analysis. Further data sources are required to better determine the true burden of CA-CDI and other risk factors of CDI in Queensland.