A deep learning model for predicting multidrug-resistant organism infection in critically ill patients

Background This study aimed to apply the backpropagation neural network (BPNN) to develop a model for predicting multidrug-resistant organism (MDRO) infection in critically ill patients. Methods This study collected patient information admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) of the Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University from August 2021 to January 2022. All patients enrolled were divided randomly into a training set (80%) and a test set (20%). The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator and stepwise regression analysis were used to determine the independent risk factors for MDRO infection. A BPNN model was constructed based on these factors. Then, we externally validated this model in patients from May 2022 to July 2022 over the same center. The model performance was evaluated by the calibration curve, the area under the curve (AUC), sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy. Results In the primary cohort, 688 patients were enrolled, including 109 (15.84%) MDRO infection patients. Risk factors for MDRO infection, as determined by the primary cohort, included length of hospitalization, length of ICU stay, long-term bed rest, antibiotics use before ICU, acute physiology and chronic health evaluation II, invasive operation before ICU, quantity of antibiotics, chronic lung disease, and hypoproteinemia. There were 238 patients in the validation set, including 31 (13.03%) MDRO infection patients. This BPNN model yielded good calibration. The AUC of the training set, the test set and the validation set were 0.889 (95% CI 0.852–0.925), 0.919 (95% CI 0.856–0.983), and 0.811 (95% CI 0.731–0.891), respectively. Conclusions This study confirmed nine independent risk factors for MDRO infection. The BPNN model performed well and was potentially used to predict MDRO infection in ICU patients.