Assessment of knowledge of health care workers on ventilator care bundle in the intensive care unitof a tertiary care hospital Bengaluru, India

Introduction: Health care associated infection or hospital acquired infection is one of common problems faced by hospitals in all countries. Ventilator-associated Pneumonia (VAP) is a major healthcare burden in terms of mortality, escalating healthcare costs, increased length of ventilator days and hospital stay. Despite advances in antimicrobial therapy, better basic care of ventilated patients on mechanical ventilation and a wide variety of preventive measures. Aims and objectives: To assess & compare knowledge of health care workers (doctors and nurses) on ventilator care bundle in ICU before and after a structured training programme. Materials and Method: It is a Cross-sectional study Conducted at Intensive Care unit in a tertiary care centre Bengaluru, over a period of three months. Interventions were through an educational module which consisted of lectures on VAP prevention. The lectures were preceded by a pre-test and followed by a post-test, held aseries of 60-min training sessions covering VAP definition, risk factors, aetiology, and importance and components of care bundles. Questions included were specific to definition and cause of VAP, route of intubation, position of patient, suction system, humidifier, components of ventilator bundle care, role of Culture in diagnosis of VAP, change of ventilator circuits. Statistics: Descriptive statistics was used to analyse the results. Results: The mean total scores of physicians, nurseswere 90%, 69.7% pretest and was increases to 96% and 85% respectively in post test, there was significant increase in score of nurses in post test. Conclusion: Knowledge on recommended guidelines does not necessarily reflectappropriate practices but it is important for implementing evidence-based guidelines for preventing VAP. The study was intended to assess knowledge of ICU health care providers (physicians, nurses) knowledge of evidence-based guidelines for preventing VAP and not to evaluate the practices.