Exclusion Criteria
To be included, publications had to be full articles, (abstracts were excluded) and CLABSIs had to occur in adult ICU or non-ICU settings. The following exclusion criteria were applied when considering articles to be included in the systematic review of CLABSI cost:
- Articles not pertaining to calculating attributable CLABSI cost estimates were excluded.
- Articles combining CLABSI cost estimates with other hospital-acquired infections were excluded.
- Articles in which hospitals were not within the United States were excluded.
- Cost estimates not in U.S. dollars were excluded.
- Articles pertaining to bloodstream infections that were not hospital-acquired were excluded.
- Articles related to dialysis-acquired CLABSI were excluded.
- Articles where CLABSI was assessed in persons younger than 18 years of age (i.e., pediatrics) were excluded.
- Simulated cost models were excluded.
- Articles published in a language other than English were excluded.
- Articles related to non-human subjects were excluded.
- Review and systematic review articles were excluded; however, articles were pulled and citations cross-checked.
- Articles published before 2002 were excluded.
- Articles not peer reviewed were excluded.
- Letters, case reports (n=1), historical articles, editorials, and commentaries were excluded.
