Comparative study of pain and mucosal injury in tracheal suctioning with foley and nelaton catheters in patients admitted to the intensive care unit

One of the important nursing interventions in intensive care unit is tracheal suctioning to drain airway secretions. Although this procedure is necessary and useful for managing patients' airways, it is sometimes painful and causes mucosal injury, so it is necessary to try to find tools or methods with the least injury. The purpose of this study was to determin and compare pain and mucosal injury in tracheal suctioning with foley and nelaton catheters in patients admitted to the intensive care unit of selected hospitals affiliated with Alborz University of medical sciences in 2022. 

The current study was a two-group experimental study, and its statistical population was all patients hospitalized in the intensive care unit of Alborz Karaj Hospital in the first half of 2022. Based on the inclusion criteria, 60 patients were selected through the available sampling method and randomly assigned to two groups: suction with Foley catheters and suction with Nelaton catheters. Patients were suctioned for three days or 12 times as needed and were compared in terms of pain intensity and the amount of mucosal damage caused by suction. In order to collect data, the demographic information form of the patients, Behavioral Pain Scale (BPS) and the observational checklist of mucosal injury were used to evaluate the mucosal damage. The data were analyzed with SPSS21 statistical software and using Independent t-tests, Fisher's exact and chi-square tests. 

There was no statistically significant difference between the two groups in terms of demographic variables. Before suctioning, there was no statistically significant difference between the pain intensity of the two groups of patients at any of the 12 times (P>0.05). But after suction, this difference in the first (P=0.005), second (P=0.003), third (P=0.011), fifth (P=0.017), sixth (P = 0.016), the seventh (P = 0.006), the eighth (P = 0.003), the ninth (P = 0.017) and the tenth (P = 0.017) were significant and suction with Foley catheter compared to Nelaton catheter had less pain (P<0.05). In the case of mucosal injury, there was a significant difference between the two groups at the ninth (P=0.029), tenth (P=0.047) and twelfth (P=0.020) times, and the number of people who suffered after suction There were mucosal damage in the Foley catheter suction group compared to the Nelaton suction group.

Since the use of Foley catheters for suctioning the tracheal tube of patients hospitalized in the intensive care unit causes less pain and mucous membrane than the Nelaton catheters, it is suggested that an arrangement be made to use this method for suctioning the tracheal tube. Patients should be given more attention..