Effect of education related to oral care practices on nurses’ knowledge, practice and clinical outcomes of mechanically ventilated patients in Dubai

Introduction: There has been a growing rate of Ventilator Associated Pneumonia (VAP) despite the successful implementation of VAP bundles. Objectives: Objectives were to assess the knowledge and oral care practices of nurses and the clinical outcomes related to poor oral care practices on ventilated patients before and after education on ‘oral care practices’; to identify the effect of educational program for nurses’ knowledge, oral care practices and clinical outcomes on mechanically ventilated patients and to find the relationship between nurses’ knowledge and their selected demographic variables. The clinical outcomes included oral hygienic status and incidence of VAP among ventilated patients. Methods and Materials: The study used a pre-experimental pretest and posttest design on a sample of 30 critical care nurses of a hospital in Dubai. An educational session was taken and an Oral Care Protocol was implemented. Results: Although most of them (46.7%) had an experience of 10 to 20 years in critical care, 40% of the nurses never had any form of education on oral hygiene in ICU. The results of the study on knowledge, practice of nurses & oral hygiene assessment were markedly significant; their knowledge and oral care practices obtained good scores and the oral hygiene improved to 96.7% (P=0.0001). The VAP incidence was zero during and after the study. Conclusion: It was concluded that education of nurses on oral care practices resulted in significant improvement of their practices and on the clinical outcomes among the ventilated patients.