Evidence Based Practice

Introduction / Background to the problem

The occurrence of severe sepsis and septic shock constitute about 2 .9 of hospital admissions in the US , of which 10 are admitted into the intensive care unit and mortality rates exceed 30 (Angus et al , 2001 In a 21-year analysis of sepsis cases in hospitals in the US , it was reported that between 1979 and 2000 , the annual rate of increase of sepsis cases was 8 .7 . Figures since 1979 also show 164 ,000 cases (82 .7 per 100 ,000 population ) to nearly 660 ,000 cases (240

.4 per 100 ,000 population ) in 2000 (Martin et al , 2003

However , despite increasing cases annually , the mortality rate was reported to decrease from 27 .8 during the 1979 to 1984 period to 17 .9 from 1995 to 2000 (Martin et al , 2003 . Fairly new technologies and treatment account for this increase . In fact , a recent method using bacteriophage therapy was observed to result in a 66 .7 survival rate of mice models infected with gut-derived sepsis infected with Pseudomonas aeruginosa (Watanabe et al , 2007

Sepsis is described as a syndrome which is characterized by a general systemic inflammation as a reaction of the body to infection or systemic inflammatory response syndrome , that is , cases where sepsis was also be observed to develop even in the absence of bacterial , viral , fungal or parasitic infection . It is a serious and deadly condition which usually results from a compounded infection problem which may result from another disease , trauma , hemorrhagic shock , old age or a compromised immune system (Bone et al , 1992 . Hunter (2006 ) explains that the reason why sepsis is rarely given attention and popularized for public information and attention is because it is not a disease in itself but a reaction of the body to a lowered immunological response . Nevertheless it is a major cause of fatalities around the globe , with a predicted value of around 18 million individuals infected annually . In addition reported cases provide an underestimation of the statistics in some countries where some cases are not diagnosed

A typical per patient treatment cost of US 22 ,000 in the US (Slade et al , 2003 . In burn patients , contraction of sepsis is responsible for 54 of reported deaths (Church et al , 2006 . It is also reported as one of the major causes of mortality and morbidity in intensive care unit cases (Villar et al , 2001 . In Europe , where three out of one thousand people are affected , the number of infected individual is rising at a rate of 1 .5 every year . In addition , surviving patients experience a reduced quality of life (Hunter , 2006 . Data from EU countries state that about half of the reported sepsis cases end up in casualties , this is despite very expensive treatment expenditures scientific researches , built infrastructure , secured food supply or conducted feeding and literacy programs all over the world . With few surviving victims of this syndrome , European medical associations and the International Sepsis Forum has started a program that aims to...