Abstract
Aim: Oral care is too forgotten in the physiological crises of critical illness, but problems developing from their
time in ICU can cause long-term oral and nosocomial disease. Maintaining oral health in the critically ill patient is an
essential nursing activity and the state of a patient’s mouth can be an index of nursing care received. Critical care
nurses can contribute a lot in the prevention of VAP, and thereby helps to reduce healthcare costs. Understanding
VAP and its risk factors can make nurses more prepared in handling the problem. Preventive measures should be
widely applied to daily nursing care. Each critical nurse can play a functional role in reducing and preventing the
occurrence of VAP, subsequently improving the patients' recovery rate and consequently reducing healthcare costs.
This study aimed to evaluate the effect of oral care intervention on the occurrence of ventilator-associated
pneumonia
Methods: The sixty patients were assigned in two groups (control and study) thirty in each. The control group
involved patients receiving the routine nursing oral care while the study group involved patients who utilized oral
care intervention using toothbrush and chlorhexidine
Results: A Statistical significant difference was found between both groups as regard to occurrence of Ventilator
associated pneumonia VAP (p=0.001). Regarding, days of ICU stay. It was found that only 33.3% of patients in the
study group stayed more than 7 days in the ICU compared to73.3% of patients the control group. There was a
significant difference between the two groups (p=0.002). There were no statistically significant differences between
the two groups (on day1) among the oral assessment. There were highly statistically significant differences among
both groups in relation to oral assessment after completion of oral care intervention (p