Thesis & Dissertations

Most of critically ill patients need mechanical ventilator (MV) which assists or replaces their breathing. Mechanically ventilated patients are more likely to develop pulmonary infection and ventilator associated pneumonia (VAP). VAP has been associated with increased morbidity, longer hospital stay, increased health care costs, and higher mortality rates. The critical care nurse has an important and crucial role in preventing VAP. Evidence indicates that training of critical care nurses about the implementation of VAP Prevention Bundle had a great effect on decreasing the incidence of VAP. Therefore, this study was conducted to determine the effect of nurses training on Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia (VAP) Prevention Bundle on VAP Incidence Rate at a Critical Care Unit. A quasi-experimental study was conducted on 12 critical care nurses and on all mechanically ventilated patients over a three months period before and after conducting the training program. In this study, three tools were used: Nursing Questionnaire about VAP and VAP Prevention, VAP Prevention Bundle performance checklist, and Patient's Clinical Assessment Sheet for VAP. The study results showed that the training of critical care nurses on VAP Prevention Bundle is essential as it improved nurses' knowledge and compliance to VAP Prevention Bundle, and consequently reduced the incidence of developing VAP. A training program was conducted on VAP Prevention Bundle after assessing nurses‘ knowledge. Skills were evaluated before and after the training program. The effect of that training on VAP rates was identified by comparing the VAP incidence rate three months before and three months after the training program.