Effect of applying saline spray on nasal health status of critically ill patients

Abstract

Objective: A fundamental aspect of hygienic care in ICU is nasal care. However, providing nasal care for critically ill patients is challenging because of caring for very sick patients in a highly stressful environment results in nasal care having a lower priority for nurses than other aspects of care. This study was conducted to investigate the effect of applying saline spray on nasal health status of critically ill patients.

Methods: This study was carried out in intensive care units at Emergency Hospital. Sixty patients were enrolled and divided into a study group who received saline nasal spray three times daily for seven days and a control group who received routine hospital care. Secretion load and nasal cultures were assessed before and on the 7th day of nasal care.

Results: No significance difference was found between control and study groups as regards to secretion score before nasal care. On the 7th day, there was a statistically significant deterioration of the secretion score by increasing to 3 (p < .001) in the control group. However, a significant improvement was noted in the study group in comparison to the control group (p < .001). In addition, about half of the control group had proliferated Klebsiella in the first culture which continued to the second culture on the 7th day of routine nasal care while no one had proliferated Klebsiella in the studied sample following administration of normal saline spray which was highly statistically significant. 

Conclusions: The use of saline nasal spray is more effective than routine nasal care in reducing colonization with different bacterial species and improving secretion score.