A Patient’s Guide to Clostridioides Difficile

Clostridioides difficile (C diff) is a bacteria which causes diarrhoea, sometimes with abdominal pain and vomiting. It often occurs following treatment with antibiotics. Most often it affects elderly people and those with other health problems.

The symptoms range from having diarrhoea for a few days, to frequent offensive stools with mucus and sometimes blood. This may resolve on its own or may require antibiotic treatment.

If you have had three or more episodes of loose stools within 24 hours we will take a stool specimen and send it to the laboratory for testing. The result should be available between 24 – 48 hours later.

Yes. A specific antibiotic treatment can be given for up to 10 days. C diff symptoms usually subside within 2-3 days of treatment. There are some cases wherein C diff symptoms resolve on its own without treatment.

C diff bacteria can be found in large numbers in faeces but it can survive outside the body and live in the environment such as bed sheets and surfaces. Your room will be cleaned daily with a chlorine-based cleaning agent including a change of your bed linen.

It is advisable that you maintain good personal hygiene including changing into fresh, clean clothes everyday. Perform regular hand washing with soap and water to prevent the spread of infection. Alcohol hand rub/gel is not effective in killing C diff spores.

Yes, as isolation in conjunction with good infection control practice is the key to preventing cross infection to other patients. This will give you more privacy, especially when symptoms are at their most distressing. You will have en-suite facility and if this is not available, a commode will be provided.

Visitors may still come and see you and will be advised of good infection control practices. Healthy people are less likely to catch C diff. including children and pregnant women.

There is no need for visitors to wear gloves and aprons, unless they are providing personal care, for example, washing you or changing your clothes. For visitors seeing multiple patients, it is advisable for them to see family/friends who do not have an infection first.

Hands should be washed thoroughly on leaving the single room.

If you are suffering from diarrhoea due to C diff, you should only use hospital linen. Your own clothes should be taken home daily by family or carers and washed separately at temperatures above 60o C.

Unfortunately yes. Further courses of antibiotics may cause the symptoms to return. Sometimes it will be necessary to give a longer course of treatment to eliminate the C diff infection.

When the diarrhoea stops, the course of antibiotics has been finished and when your normal bowel habit returns, we consider the infection has resolved, but you can continue to shed C diff spores so you will still need isolation. There is no need for further laboratory testing to check for Clostridioides difficile unless we suspect a new infection.