Oral health in patients of intensive care and factors affecting

This research was carried out as a descriptive and prospective study in order to evaluate the oral health of patients hospitalized in the adult intensive care unit and to determine the factors affecting oral health. The research was carried out with 151 patients who were treated and cared for in the secondary and tertiary adult intensive care units in a city hospital between January 2019 and November 2019. Research data were obtained using the Patient Diagnosis Form, Eilers Oral Evaluation Guide and Oral Health Evaluation Chart. In order to conduct the research, institutional permissions were obtained with the approval of the ethics committee. In the evaluation of the research data, descriptive statistics tests, number and percentage distributions, Two-way ANOVA analysis of variance in Repeated Measures, Mann Whitney U test, Pearson Correlation analysis and Linear Regression analysis were used by using SPSS 23.0 program. The p<0.05 value was considered significant in the evaluation of the data. In the study, it was determined that oral mucous membrane deterioration increased from the 1st to the 3rd and 5th days in the patients hospitalized in the intensive care unit. In the study, there was a positive correlation between the deterioration of the oral mucous membrane and age, the number of decayed teeth in the mouth, urea, glucose, and magnesium values of the patients hospitalized in the intensive care unit; It was determined that there was a negative correlation with Gloskow Coma Scale scores, albumin, calcium, pCO2, HCO3 and drug use status. In the study, it was determined that there were significant differences between the gender of the patients hospitalized in the intensive care unit, the diagnosis of respiratory and urinary system disease, endotracheal tube (intubated) and CIBAB oxygen therapy, oral and parenteral feeding pattern, and repeated measurements of mouth evaluation scores (p<0.05). The result obtained from our research shows that there are many factors that impair the oral health of intensive care patients. For this reason, nurses need to carry out risk assessment and care in intensive care with evidence-level practices. KEYWORDS: Nursing, intensive care, patient, oral health, oral hygiene.