WORLD JOURNAL OF ADVANCE
HEALTHCARE RESEARCH

Akram Abu Salah*, Ahmed Abuadwan and Khalil Abu Shuaib

ABSTRACT

This is a descriptive cross-sectional study aimed to measure the practices of nurses towards prevention of ventilator associated pneumonia (VAP) at pediatric intensive care units (PICUs). The sample of the study considers census sample design including all eligible nurses (55 nurses) who are working in Pediatric Intensive Care Units (PICUs) on the four governmental hospitals in Gaza Strip. The researchers used structured observational checklist to collect data about practices of nurses toward prevention of ventilator associated pneumonia. The results showed that the overall score of practices to prevent VAP at PICUs was above moderate (77.11%), in which half of the nurses (50.9%) showed high level of practices, and slightly less than half (43.6%) of nurses showed moderate level of practices compared to only 5.5% of nurses showed low level of practices. Of which, suctioning and care of endotracheal tube/tracheotomy measures was captured the highest score (82.41%) of practices, while oral care, and hand washing practices were represented as 81.64%, and 67.28% respectively. The study findings stress on the need of hands washing before enter PICUs and the nurses should receive an adequate training about infection control in order to maintain a high quality of care and to prevent the development of ventilator associated pneumonia at pediatric intensive care units.