The percentage of nurses who state that they instill normal saline in
the airway (87.7%) was found to be quite high among the intensive care
nurses in our study. However, most of the nurses stated that they do not
perform this practice routinely. In similar studies, NSI was reported to
be applied by most health care professionals for patients with thickand tenacious secretions, similar to the results of our study. Some studies
suggested that NSI is used on patients who are proven to need NSI [16].
However, it remains unclear how the nurses evaluate pulmonary secretions
as thick and tenacious. In addition, the amount of normal saline to
be applied when NSI is necessary is unclear in the literature