Preventing Vascular Access Infection in Dialysis Patients - Essay Example

"Preventing Vascular Access Infection in Dialysis Patients" is a perfect example of a paper on infections.
Patients who undergo hemodialysis are at risk of various infections. Due to the insertion of a Central Venous Catheter (CVC), AV Fistula, and/or AV graft, the flow of white blood cells in the body is negatively affected. As a result, patients who undergo hemodialysis may develop vascular infections among others (Wish, 2012).

In relation to vascular infection, Downham et al. (2012) reported that approximately 37,000 cases of bloodstream infections (BSIs) occurred among hemodialysis patients in the United States back in 2008. In general, bacteria like staphylococcus aureus and fungi can easily be transmitted from one patient to another whereas air-borne viruses can also infect patients within the dialysis center. Since patients with kidney failure have weak lymphocytes, this group of patients is vulnerable to virus, bacteria, and fungi infections (Wish, 2012).

Significance of the Problem to Nursing

Dialysis infection is considered the main cause of death among hemodialysis patients (CDC, 2012; Bessias et al., 2008). Since nurses are the front-liners within a healthcare organization, the nurses should focus on how they can effectively manage and control the spread of infections in order to promote patient safety.

Preventing vascular infection in dialysis within the dialysis center is one of the best ways in which the nurses can deliver holistic care to the patients. Since part of the duty of nurses is to deliver holistic care to the patients, it becomes the duty of the student nurses’ to increase their knowledge and skills on how they can prevent vascular infection within the dialysis center.

For instance, nurses should know about the importance of decolonization (i.e. handwashing with soap, the use of alcohol-based hand sanitizer, regularly disinfecting the air and medical equipment used in dialysis, etc.) and proper management of CVC, AV Fistula, and/or AV graft (i.e. the practice of surgical washing, is it advisable to wash access immediately before cannulation, what is the maximum number of days nurses should allow the catheters to be inserted in the patients’ body) among others.

 Importance of the Problem to Nurses and to Patients

Vascular infection does not only increase the patients’ mortality risks but also adds up the economic burden the patients’ family has to face since infected patients are more difficult to treat and require a prolonged hospital stay and expensive medicine to cure infection (Bessias et al., 2008). Since the spread of infectious pathogens can cause harmful health impacts on the physical health of the patients, student nurses should exert more effort to learn different ways on how they can strictly implement infection control measures and prevent vascular infection in dialysis. Doing so will make the dialysis center free from infectious microorganisms.

Intended Way to Address the Problem through Examination of Research

To ensure that student nurses are able to implement effective infection control in dialysis centers, this study aims to conduct a literature review to determine not only the adverse socio-economic and health effects of vascular infection but also the different ways in which the student nurses can effectively prevent vascular infection within a dialysis center. To address the study problem, search engines like CINAHL, Medline, PubMed, and Cochrane databases will be utilized for the literature review.

To narrow down the searches, the following delimiters will be used in the study: (1) vascular infection dialysis center; (2) prevent vascular infection; (3) prevent vascular infection dialysis center; and (4) causes vascular infection among others.