Exploring ICU nurses’ knowledge, practices and perceptions about comprehensive mouth care for ventilated patients at a specific University Teaching Hospital in Kigali, Rwanda

Abstract

Background Oral care in the ICU is a frequent and common nursing procedure which has been proven to prevent Ventilator Associated Pneumonia and also considered as an important part of daily nursing care. Unfortunately this is thought by many nurses to be a comfort intervention rather than an intervention to control accumulation of pathogens in the oral cavity contributing to ventilator associated Pneumonia which results in long hospital stay, increase of cost and increase of mortality rate in ICU. Aim of the Study: The aim of the current study was to explore intensive care unit (ICU) nurses‟ knowledge, practices and perceptions about comprehensive mouth care for ventilated patients at one specific university teaching Hospital, Kigali, Rwanda.Methods: A quantitative descriptive approach, cross sectional prospective design, and a total population sampling was used. Self administered questionnaires were administered to 47 ICU nurses for data collection. Tables were used to present results and data entry was facilitated by the use of SPSS version 21.Chi-square statistical test and cross tabulation were used to compare variables. iii Results: Study results showed that only 2(4.3%) ICU nurses knew that poor oral hygiene may result in ventilated associated pneumonia. Comprehensive mouth care obtained 10th rank among 17(36.2%) as an important procedure for ventilated patients. Moreover majority of ICU nurses 37(78.7%) were found to have low practice level in performing comprehensive mouth care. Conclusion:Comprehensive mouth care is critical care for all ventilated patients. Unfortunately results of this study showed that most of ICU nurses had low level of practice and most of them could not link mouth care and prevention of Ventilator Associated pneumonia. Considering the important role of good oral care in prevention of VAP; these findings suggest the need for developing a standardized mouth care protocol and educating ICU nurses in area of comprehensive mouth care thus to increase quality of care and prevent nosocomial infection which kill ICU patients and increase costs and hospital stay