Assessment of nurses’ knowledge and compliance to evidence based guidelines regarding bundle of ventilator associated pneumonia in a military hospital

Ventilator-associated pneumonia is the most common hospital-acquired infection among patients receiving mechanical ventilation in an intensive care unit. Different evidence based guidelines for the prevention of ventilator-associated pneumonia have been developed and recommended. Intensive Care Units’ nurses have been found to be in the best position to put knowledge into practice as they are at the patient’s bedside 24 hours daily providing nursing care and therefore play an important role in the prevention of VAP. This study focuses on enhancing nurses’ knowledge and compliance regarding ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) bundle for prevention of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) in intensive care units in a Military Hospital. Objectives: To assess the critical care nurses' knowledge of and compliance with the preventive care bundle of ventilator associated pneumonia. All head and staff nurses (N=80) working in different intensive care units (N=9) in a Military Hospital were included. The study tools included a self-administered questionnaire designed to test nurse's knowledge and an observational checklist to test nurses’ compliance with ventilator associated pneumonia bundle. Results: The total mean score of nurses’ compliance (70.6%) was more than the total mean score of nurses’ knowledge (52.4 %) of evidence based guidelines regarding ventilator associated pneumonia bundle. Nurses’ knowledge levels were excellent in 16% of the studied nurses, very good in 7.2%, good in 17.6%, fair in 14.9% & poor in 44.3% of the studied nurses. Nurses’ compliance levels were excellent in 56.4%, very good in 3.5%, good in 2%, fair in 24.5% & Poor in 13.43% of the studied nurses. In conclusion: The knowledge of VAP bundle components in the study group was considerably lower than the compliance levels, which indicates that training educational programs directed towards infection prevention and control of device-associated infections should stress on explaining the principle behind the procedure, and manuals, information booklets and self-instruction modules should be implemented to guide healthcare personnel in areas of prevention of VAP.