National incidence and impact of noninfectious urethral catheter related complications on the Surgical Care Improvement Project

Purpose: We defined the incidence and health outcomes related impact of noninfectious urethral catheter related complications for the 7 surgical procedures monitored by the Joint Commission as part of the Surgical Care Improvement Project.

Materials and methods: We performed a cross-sectional analysis of the 2007 National Inpatient Sample (a 20% stratified sampling of nonfederal United States hospitals) using ICD-9-CM procedure and diagnostic codes to identify the incidence of catheter related complications for coronary artery bypass graft, and noncoronary artery bypass graft cardiac surgery, hysterectomy, colon, hip, knee and major vascular surgery. Univariate and multivariate analysis (with a significance level of less than 0.05) was performed to determine if these complications were associated with length of stay, urinary tract infections and/or deaths.

Results: A total of 1,420 cases of catheter related complications were identified nationally. The incidence of catheter related complications varied by surgical procedure (average 1 in 528 men and 1 in 5,217 women for all procedures). Univariate analysis revealed that in the presence of catheter related complications, mean length of stay (6 of 7 procedures, range 1.5 to 3.0 days, p <0.05) and urinary tract infection (5 of 7 procedures, absolute range 6.9% to 11.8%, p <0.05) were statistically increased for most procedures. Multivariate analysis demonstrated a significant association between catheter related complications, and increased length of stay (range 1.5 to 3.5 days, p <0.05) and urinary tract infection (OR 2.4-6.8, p <0.05) for 5 and 6 of 7 procedure types, respectively, but not mortality rate (0 of 7 procedures).

Conclusions: Catheter related complications are reported rarely, but are associated with increased length of stay and urinary tract infection rates for patients in the Surgical Care Improvement Project.