Investigating the Relationship between the Level of Compliance with Airway Care Standards and Complications from Endotracheal Intubation: A Cross- Sectional Study

Compliance with airway care standards is necessary to maintain the health of patients admitted to special departments of hospitals. The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between compliance with airway care standards and complications from endotracheal intubation.

This descriptive-analytical research was cross-sectional. The research population of this study consisted of 122 nursing personnel working in four hospitals and in the internal ICU and surgical ICU departments of Persian Gulf Bushehr Hospitals, cardiac surgical ICU of Bushehr Heart Hospital, Salman Farsi Bushehr and internal and surgical ICU of Waliasr (AS) Hospital in Kazeroon, who were selected as a whole. In addition, 152 patients hospitalized in these departments were also included in the study for care evaluation. The data collection tool, including personnel demographic information and tracheal tube care checklist (including 69 questions and three items) was taken from the set of nursing care guidelines of the nursing system organization, and its validity and reliability were measured in this study.

The average age of the participants was 33.06 ± 55.3 years. Most of the nurses were women (62 people) and were working in the internal ICU department (63 people). Most of the participants had a bachelor's degree (113 people), and their work experience was 2-5 years (59 people). None of the variables of gender, education, work history, retraining history, and job status of nurses had a significant relationship with the degree of compliance with nursing care standards (P < 0.05). There was a significant relationship between the service location variable and the level of compliance with nursing care standards (P = 0.006(. Among the patients under care, 25.4% of ventilator-associated pneumonia complications, 22.4% of pressure ulcer complications, and 18.4% of extubation complications were reported. Also, there is a significant difference between the level of adherence to airway care standards and the complications caused by endotracheal intubation in patients (P -value<0.05).

The results of this study indicate that the level of adherence to airway care standards by nurses is related to factors such as the service department. Also, the level of adherence to airway care standards is related to complications caused by endotracheal intubation in patients.