Examining bed-bath practices of critically ill patients

Abstract

Introduction: Daily bed-baths are usually provided for most critically ill patients to improve patient hygiene, promote comfort and improve health outcomes. Critically ill patients are at greater risk for skin colonization and infection with multidrug-resistant organisms. Therefore, it is important to provide critically ill patient with effective personal hygiene especially bed-bath as poor hygiene may increase the risk of infection. The decision for bed-bath depends on the judgment of the caring nurse. The aim of this work was to describe bed-bath practices in intensive care units.

Methods: A descriptive design was used. Sixty intensive care unit nurses were involved. Tool: “Bed-bath practices of critically ill patients’ assessment sheet” was used to collect data.

Results: More than three quarters of nurses, 79% had improper bed-bath practices. The gap for safe bed-bath practices between nurses’ current bed-bath practices and the bed-bath evidence-based recommendations is wide (83%). Nurses’ self-reported reasons that hinder safe bed-bath practices were financial resources, followed by lack of equipment, no policy, lack of knowledge, and workload.

Conclusions: Although, bed-bath is a routine nursing procedure, critical care nurses in the current study had poor skills and knowledge regarding it. The factors affecting bed-bath practice are financial resources, lack of equipment, no policy, lack of knowledge and workload. In-service training program should be conducted for nurses regarding putting priority of nursing care, determining timing and frequency for the bed-bath.