Prevalence of Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates and their antibiotic susceptibility among patients and healthcare workers in three Hospitals of Duhok city/ Iraq

Objective Pseudomonas aeruginosa is opportunistic gram-negative bacillus and a major human pathogen belongs to family Pseudomonadaceae, it causes several nosocomial infections including pneumonia, urinary tract, surgical sites, otitis externa, and soft tissues. Methods: The study was conducted from April 2021 to January 2022 and involved the prevalence of Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates and their susceptibility to different antimicrobial agents among patients and healthcare workers specimens in three hospitals of Duhok city. The collected specimens were examined and cultured on different media in the Advanced Microbiology Laboratory, Azadi teaching hospital. The isolated bacteria were identified according to their morphological and biochemical properties. Results: Out of 324 specimens, 29.32% (95/324) of the isolates were identified as Pseudomonas aeruginosa, isolated from 26.89% patients and 40% healthcare workers. Regarding isolate rates among specimens, the highest rate (48.78%) was from sputum, with a highly significant (P<0.001) difference from other sources. Females had a non-significantly higher isolate rate than males (28.19% vs 25.22%), ages, >50 years had the highest isolate rate (72.88%), while the lowest rate 6.25% was among ages >10-20 years, with highly significant (P< 0.001) differences among them. Specimens from Hevii hospital showed a non-significantly higher isolate rate (28.57%) than other hospitals. Isolates highest susceptibility was to Colistin (88.7%) followed by Imipenem (78.9%), while they were 98.6 % resistant to ampicillin and 100% resistant to Amoxicillin, Erythromycin and Trimethoprim/Sulfamethoxazole. A high rate of extensively drug-resistant (19.72%) Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates was documented among patients who attended these hospitals with the highest (31.25%) from wounds. Conclusion these findings will be helpful to advise treatment with appropriate antibiotic strategy against multi- and extensively drug -resistant P. aeruginosa to cope with the chances of evolving resistant pathogens.