Intervention Program on Nurse's Performance Regarding Bundle Care Strategies to Prevent Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia Among Newborns

Background: Ventilator-associated pneumonia is a serious healthcare-associated infection that causes significant morbidity and increases the mortality rate among neonates. Furthermore, it extends hospitalization stays in addition to escalating healthcare costs. Study Aim: To evaluate the Impact of intervention programs on nurses' performance regarding care bundle strategies to prevent ventilator-associated pneumonia among newborns in the neonatal intensive care unit NICU. Subjects and methods: Research design and setting: A quasi-experimental study was conducted at Hurghada General Hospital in Red Sea Governorate to achieve the aim of the current study. Subject: 55 nurses who were providing direct nursing care to 89 neonates in the mentioned settings. Tools for data collection: Three tools were employed in the current study; The first tool includes sociodemographic data of the subjects (nurses & neonates) and a questionnaire for nurses' knowledge about bundle care and ventilated associated pneumonia in NICU, the second tool utilized was an observational checklist designed to assess the nurse's practices, and to avoid ventilator-associated pneumonia among neonates in NICU, and the last one was a neonatal assessment tool. Results: 43.6% of the nurses had satisfactory knowledge about VAP bundle care before the program implementation and this percentage increased to 78.2% after the implementation of the program. On the other hand, 47.3 % had poor performance before the program implementation, compared to 20.0% of them after the program implementation. Conclusion: there was a statistically significant positive association between nurses' knowledge and practices in implementing bundle care for neonates under ventilation before and after the program's implementation with (p=0.001 & 0.012 respectively). Recommendations: Regular auditing for nurses during practice to achieve the highest performance quality, as the nurses' knowledge improved better than their practices.  Orientation of newly hired nurses in the NICU should include the VAP preventive care bundle. Every neonatal intensive care unit should include manuals, information pamphlets, and self-instruction modules about VAP preventative care packages.