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.
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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
