A Survey on Oral Care among ICU Nurses

중환자실 간호사의 구강간호에 대한 인식 및 수행 실태

Purpose: Providing oral care is one of the most important nursing interventions in ICU. Good oral health prevents various complications including pneumonia and improves patients' well-being as well. The purpose of this study was to indentify the ICU nurses’awareness and performance on oral care. Methods: Using a convenient sampling, 170 ICU nurses from 5 university hospitals in two metropolitan cities were selected. Results: Of the 170 nurses in this study, 95.9% were aware of the importance of oral care. Subjects responded that providing oral care three times or more a day was appropriate to prevent ventilator associate pneumonia. 43.5% of the subjects acknowledged that they didn’t know what the most effective oral care solution was. In oral care performance, 61.8% of subjects provided oral care once a day for patients with intubation, and 74.7% used oral solutions without knowing the exact pharmacological effects of them. Conclusion: As the results of this study, most ICU nurses realized the importance on oral care for ICU patients, but the frequency of performance was low. To improve oral care performance in the ICU, structured education should be provided to ICU nurses and evidence based oral care protocols need to be developed.