Nursing Documentation of Hygiene Practices in Intensive Care Units

Aims: Nursing documentation is part of nurses’ medical notes and a source of basic and essential information in health care. It is a patient record containing all written information about a patient’s condition and needs. The aim was to assess the nursing documentation of hygiene practice for patients in the ICU and to find out the relationship between nurses’ documentation of patient hygiene practice and their demographic characteristics. Instrument Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in the Middle Euphrates Teaching Hospital ICU from 9 February 2023 to 26 June 2024. The convenience sample of 125 nurses was selected. The questionnaire covers socio-demographic data (age/years, gender, educational level, marital status, and experience years) and the documentation of nursing hygienic care for hair (2 items), mouth (3 items), eye (4 items), and nose (3 items) for unconscious patients. Data was analyzed using SPSS 25 software with descriptive statistical methods and variance analysis. Findings: The nurses expressed fair practices regarding patient hair care (1.88±0.73), mouth care (1.86±0.66), eye care (1.98±0.67), and nose care (1.84±0.47). Overall, 73.6% of the nurses exhibited fair documentation of hygiene practices. There have been significant differences in nurses’ documentation for hygiene based on their education level and years of experience. Conclusion: The assessment of the nursing staff’s documentation is fair. However, there are significant differences in nurses’ documentation for unconscious patients based on education levels and years of experience.