Effect of chlorhexidine bathing on reducing ventilatorassociated pneumonia in patients in neurosurgical intensive care unit

Abstract:

ObjectiveTo evaluate the effect of chlorhexidine bathing on reducing ventilatorassociated pneumonia(VAP).MethodsPatients with mechanical ventilation for>48 hours in the neurosurgical intensive care unit(ICU) in a hospital were intervened, chlorhexidine skin rubbing was performed once a day, effective supervision and management mechanism was established, incidence of VAP before intervention (JanuaryDecember, 2013) and after intervention (first stage: JanuaryDecember, 2014; second stage: JanuaryDecember, 2015) was compared.ResultsA total of 1 015 patients were investigated, implementation rate of chlorhexidine skin rubbing before intervention was 0, the first and second stages of postintervention were 55.36% and 88.49% respectively. Incidence of VAP per 1 000 ventilator days before intervention was 9.21‰, the first and second stage after intervention were 7.67‰ and 4.77‰ respectively， correlation analysis on two groups of data showed that there was a negative correlation between incidence of VAP and implementation rate of intervention measures(rs=-1.00, P<0.001).ConclusionDaily bathing with chlorhexidine can effectively reduce the incidence of VAP.