The Impact of Oral Care in the Prevention of Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia: A Narrative Review

The role of nurses in preventing pneumonia caused by mechanical ventilation is essential. Therefore, this review article aimed at determining the effect of oral care on the prevention of pneumonia caused by mechanical ventilation in patients admitted to intensive care units.
In clinical trials from year 2005 to 2015, the role of oral care in ventilator-induced pneumonia was used. The full text of articles was obtained through searches in accessible databases such as SID, PubMed, Iran Medex, Elsevier, Springer, Magiran, and Google scholar. Also, the words "oral care", "oral hygiene", mouth care, oral hygiene practices, mouth hygiene, critical care, intubated intensive care, intubated mechanically ventilated, ventilator-associated pneumonia", and the equivalent of Persian in the title or abstract were searched and examined. In this study, the spirit protocol was used to evaluate the articles.
At first, 1432 articles were obtained. After having the criteria for entering the study, 32 articles were finally selected. Oral care with chlorhexidine and antiseptic prevents ventilator-induced pneumonia. Tooth brushing has a significant effect on reducing the number of dental plaques, which is the site of accumulation of ventilator-induced pneumonia microorganisms. The implementation of an evidence-based intervention program will improve the quality of oral care by nurses and awareness of pneumonia caused by a ventilator and can increase the importance of oral care.
Oral care plays an important role in the prevention of ventilator-induced pneumonia, and nurse's knowledge about ventilator and oral care in pneumonia needs to be promoted.