Safety and efficacy of home intravenous antimicrobial infusion therapy in older patients: a comparative study with younger patients.

BACKGROUND: Home intravenous antimicrobial infusion therapy has proved its safety and efficacy in a great number of infections. Despite this there are few published studies about this way of managing in the elderly patient.

OBJECTIVE: To study the safety and efficacy of home intravenous antimicrobial infusion therapy in elderly patients.

STUDY DESIGN: A prospective and comparative study of an elderly group of patients > or =70 years old vs. a cohort of younger adult patients as a control group. All patients were followed until 3 months after discharge.

SETTING: Hospital at Home Programme (HHP) as part of the Internal Medicine Department at Valle de Hebrón Hospital, Barcelona, Spain.

PATIENTS: All patients admitted to HHP diagnosed of infections requiring intravenous antibiotic therapy between March 2006 and March 2007.

RESULTS: We included 145 patients, 90 of whom were 70 years or older. Diabetes mellitus, heart failure and respiratory tract infection were more frequent in these elderly patients. In this group 14 (12%) developed some type of adverse event during treatment, phlebitis being the most common. The majority of those in the elderly patients group were discharged because of satisfactory clinical evolution and only 7 (7%) were re-admitted to hospital. Another 13 (14%) were re-admitted to hospital 3 months after discharge from HHP, mostly for chronic diseases. There were no significant differences between these results and those obtained from the control group.

CONCLUSION: Home intravenous antimicrobial infusion therapy in elderly patients is safe and effective.