The Effectiveness of Mouth-Care Practices for Preventing Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia - Literature review Example

This paper focuses upon ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), an avertable resultant of mechanical ventilation and intubation. VAP is essentially pneumonia that forms in intubated patients within the first 48 or so hours. It normally occurs in patients who have been put on mechanical ventilator support to aid their labored breathing. As will be noted in the research findings, VAP is preventable through a number of interventions. According to the Institute of Healthcare Improvements, VAP prevention in intubated patients can be done by raising the head of ventilated patients’ beds up to 300, administering blockers such as gastric histamine, using sequential compression devices such as anticoagulants to inhibit venous thromboembolism.

In addition, VAP can be averted in intubated patients by administering nurses exercising proper hand hygiene when performing intubation. Furthermore, interrupting daily sedation programs at 10 am to assess neurologic status is a key step aimed at preventing VAP in patients. As the dissertation will make clear, oral hygiene is of paramount importance when considering the prevention and mitigating effects of VAP. By the end of this paper, it will be clear that coupling the aforementioned preventative bundles and timely oral hygiene measures such as tooth brushing can indeed prevent VAP occurrence.

Therefore, this paper supports the premise that oral hygiene is paramount in dealing with and preventing VAP in ventilated patients. Therefore, this paper supports the premise that oral hygiene is paramount in dealing with and preventing VAP in ventilated patients. Stevens et al (1993) explain that the purpose of a literature review is to add more in-depth background about a body of the information already available or published. To access the relevant information, LoBiondo-Ward and Haber (2006) advocate the use of two or more databases.

Therefore, a search for the University's electronic databases was performed according to Heck et al (2002). This method will result in the most current and relevant information being accessed. The question that is being sought to answer is: “The effectiveness of mouth care practices for preventing Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia in orally intubated patients” a Systematic search was performed to ensure that all relevant publications were identified. The three databases used for this research were  EMBASE, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), and MEDLINE.

MEDLINE and CINAHL are recognized as the databases most used by authors on a daily basis (McKibbon and Marks, 1998). Whereas an EMBASE search will help us retrieve almost everything from a topic. CINAHL covers most nursing aspects as it is the main nursing database (Hammer and Collinson, 2005). In order to answer the proposed question, a systematic and methodical search was used, this search encompassed the basic elements of the research question. Flaming (1998) encourages the use of this framework because it makes the question additionally focused. For that reason, when searching on electronic databases keywords were used to ensure the data was relevant, and the volume manageable.