Nurses’ Knowledge Regarding Prevention of Ventilator Associated Pneumonia

Abstract

Ventilator Associated Pneumonia (VAP) is one of the common nosocomial infections with the prevalence rate of 10% to 70% in Intensive Care Units (ICUs). The incidence of VAP is 22.8% in patients on mechanical ventilation. Nurse's lack of knowledge about infection prevention and proper nursing care may become barrier to Prevent VAP. Aim: The Aim of this study is to explore nurse's knowledge regarding Prevention of VAP. Methods: Cross-sectional-study was conducted at both public and private tertiary care hospitals in Peshawar from March to April 2018. Nurse's knowledge was assessed by using close-ended questionnaire from 100 Critical-care Nurses. Participants were selected through convenient sampling. The questionnaire was adopted from similar studies which included 15 questions. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics by SPSS software version 22. Results: This study consisted of 100 Participants including 30% males and 70% females. 33% of the participants were married and 67% were unmarried. Professional qualification of participants was also identified, 53% of the participants were diploma holders and 47% were generic BSN. The mean ICU experiences of participants were 2.79+3.0 years. The mean Score in the knowledge part of VAP prevention out of 15 marks was 8.14+ 1.8. Conclusion: The study concludes that several educational programs shall be arranged for nurses to improve their knowledge of VAP prevention and can decrease Ventilator associated Pneumonia among patients.