Abstract: This study was to explore the effect of caregiver on catheter exit-site infection in the incident elderly peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients.  Methods  The relevant data of the PD patients with catheterization at the age of ≥60 years in the PD Center of our hospital from January 2009 to December 2012 were recruited.  Results  A total of 213 incident elderly PD patients were recruited in this study. Their average age was 68.5±6.0 years old, with 51.6% males and 48.8% diabetes. The median follow-up period was 12.0 months. Twenty-eight patients (13.1%) had 30 episodes of exit-site infection with a rate of 80.9 patient-months (0.15 episodes/year/patient). Evaluation of the exit-site caregivers demonstrated that their mean age was 52.7±14.6 years, 41.8% were males, 27.2% patients took care of exit-site themselves, 15.0% patients had inconstant exit-site caregivers, and 10.8% had untrained exit-site caregivers. COX proportional risk regression showed that inconstant exit-site caregivers (HR=2.989, 95% CI: 1.089～8.206; P=0.034), untrained exit-site caregivers (HR=3.829, 95% CI: 1.630～8.994, P=0.002) and follow-up interval ≤3 months at the outpatient clinics (HR=0.389, 95% CI: 0.179～0.845, P=0.017) were the independent risk factors for catheter exit-site infections in the elderly PD patients.  Conclusions  The prevalence of exit-site infection in elderly PD patients was 0.15 episodes/year/patient. Stable caregivers, caregivers receiving standardized training by medical staff, and follow-up interval ≤3 months at the outpatient clinics may reduce the incidence of exit-site infection in incident elderly PD patients.

Key words: Peritoneal dialysis, Exit-site infection, Elderly patients, Catheter exit-site caregiver