Abstract

Bacteriuria in patients with indwelling urethral catheter in Owerri Municipality of Imo State, Nigeria was studied. A total of 500 early mornings mid stream urine samples from patients admitted in different hospitals within the Municipality. The samples were microbiologically analyzed using cultural methods on different isolation media. A total of 220 isolates were identified. Identification tests showed the presence of Escherichia coli (10%),Staphylococcus aureus (9.0%), Klebsiella sp. (7.0%), Proteus sp. (5.8%), Streptococcusfaecalis (4.0%), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (3.8%), Citrobacter sp. (2.8%) andEnterobacter sp. (1.6%). Samples obtained from patients aged 71 to 80 years had the highest incidence of bacteria. A total of 120 (48.0%) of the isolates were obtained from female patients. Out of these, 12.0% were identified as E. coli. Result further show that, long duration catherized patients of up to 29 days and above have more bacteriuria infection than short term indwelling catheter. These findings have greatly implicated indwelling catheter as a major cause of bacteriuria in catheterized patients.

Key words: Bacteuria, urethral, cathether, isolates.