Abstract
By promoting personal hygiene and improving comfort, bed baths can decrease the risk of infection and help maintain skin integrity in critically ill patients. Current bed-bathing practices commonly involve the use of either soap and water (SAW) or disposable wipes (DWs). Previous research has shown both bed-bathing methods are equally effective in removing dirt, oil, and microorganisms. This experimental study compared the cost, staff satisfaction, and effects of two bed-bathing practices on critically ill patients’ vital signs. We randomly assigned 138 participants into 2 groups: an experimental group that received bed baths using DWs and a control group that received bed baths using SAW. We compared the bath duration, cost, vital sign trends, and nursing staff satisfaction between the two groups. We used the chi-square test and t-test for the statistical analysis, and we expressed the quantitative data as mean and standard deviation. Our results showed the bed baths using DWs had a shorter duration and lower cost than those using SAW. There were no significant differences in the vital sign trends between the two groups. The nursing staff preferred to use DWs over SAW. This study can help clinical nursing staff decide which method to use when assisting patients with bed baths.
Highlights
Healthcare-associated infections develop after patients receive treatment for various diseases and increase the length of hospitalization, mortality rate, and hospitals’ costs
soap and water (SAW) is increasingly being replaced with disposable wipes (DWs) for giving bed baths [11,12,13]
This study showed that using DWs to give bed baths can increase the cost of consumables, it can reduce the bath duration and lower the total cost
Summary
Healthcare-associated infections develop after patients receive treatment for various diseases and increase the length of hospitalization, mortality rate, and hospitals’ costs. Bed baths help maintain skin integrity and remove dirt and microbes present on the skin’s surface, decreasing the risk of infection and increasing patient comfort [5]. The nursing staff must physically clean these patients using bed baths [6,7], which are generally performed using soap and water (SAW) [8]. A previous study reported 71% of nurses use the traditional bed-bathing method of SAW [8]. 62.2%–98.0% of basins used in giving SAW bed baths are contaminated with multidrugresistant pathogens [9,10]. Because patients in ICUs cannot bathe themselves [6,7], nursing staff must use bed baths to clean the patients in a way that does not negatively affect their vital signs. Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations
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