Abstract

Introduction: Maintaining quality oral health in Intubated patients is essential for better health outcomes and quality of life. Nurses are the primary caregivers including oral care in intubated patients. However, there is limited information regarding the level of nursing practice toward oral care in intubated patients and its associated factors in Ethiopia.

Objective: The aim of this study is to determine factors related to Nurses’ Practice toward Oral Care for a Patient with Endotracheal Intubation in Public Hospitals of Addis Ababa city, Ethiopia 2021.

Method and material: Institutional-based cross-sectional study was employed. Simple Random Sampling was used to select 306 nurses from four randomly selected hospitals. Structured and pretested questionnaires and Observational checklists were utilized to collect the data. Cleaned and coded data were entered into Epi-data version 4.4 and exported to SPSS version 25 for analysis. Both descriptive and analytical components were done; all variables that were significant at p-value < 0.25 in the binary logistic regression analysis were further analyzed using multivariable logistic regression analysis. Adjusted odds ratio used to measure the strength of association. The levels of statistical significance were declared at a p-value < 0.05.

Result: In this study, only 34.6% of nurses were practicing oral care for intubated patients in public hospitals. Less than half (29.49%) of the nurses reported the presence of oral care protocol in their unit and about81.6% of participants did not receive training on oral assessment and provision of oral care. Few nurses (29.5%) reported the presence of oral care protocol in their unit. In this study, having a positive attitude toward oral care [AOR=5.109, 95 % CI:[ 1.245-10.23)], having an adequate number of ICU nurses [AOR= 2.9, 95% CI: (1.8- 7.45)], having guidelines in the hospital [AOR= 4.02, 95% CI: (1.45, 7.77)] and being trained on the oral care [AOR= 6.11, 95% CI: (2.45, 9.23)] were independently associated with the nurses’ practice toward oral care in intubated patients.

Conclusion: Based on the finding of this study, the overall practice towards oral care for a patient with endotracheal intubation is inadequate among Intensive care unit (ICU) nurses. Therefore, attitude enhancement training toward oral care and provision of the oral care guideline and protocol in the hospital unit is important for nurses to give oral care in intubated patients.