Oral Hygiene in Hospital Patients: Preventing Infectious Diseases

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Table of Contents

Summary
Introduction
Importance of Oral Hygiene
Implications for Nursing Professionals
Effects of Poor Oral Hygiene
Conclusion
References

Summary

The comfort of patients is the responsibility of every medical facility.
To ensure that patients are at ease, the hospital administration has to adopt a holistic approach in caring for patients.
Oral hygiene is one of the important things that must be addressed by hospitals. A study of existing literature clearly shows that oral hygiene ensure that patients are comfortable and helps to speed up their recovery.
Consequently, it is imperative for nursing practitioners to devote part of their time to oral care for patients under their care.

Introduction

Generally, oral hygiene has to do with taking care of teeth and mouth. It is usually undertaken to ensure that the mouth is kept in a healthy oral condition. Hygienically, the mouth is supposed to clean and completely free from any form of infection.
Drawing from a study by Salamone, Yacoub, Mahoney and Edward (2013), oral hygiene is very critical in guaranteeing the comfort of a patient. On the contrary, a patients ability to communicate is greatly affected by poor oral health.
According to Soh et al. (2012), it is common knowledge among nursing practitioners that every good nursing includes oral health care.
Despite the fact that stakeholders understand the benefit of oral care to patients, research indicates that oral hygiene is often overlooked and given very little importance (Quinn & Baker, 2015). To a large extent, this neglect is due to lack of proper procedures for reinforcing the practice. Oral care is thus not effectively offered in a number of medical facilities or not offered at all.
Many variances can be singled out with regards to quality and frequency of oral care given to patients by different nursing professionals (Soh et al., 2012). Consequently, it is imperative to come up with a common standard to be followed by all practitioners in the nursing profession.

Importance of Oral Hygiene

The importance of oral health for hospital patients cannot be underestimated. According to Quinn and Baker (2015), having an effective oral care program is a must for every hospital in order to protect patients from contracting infectious diseases.
In the absence of an effective oral care program, the possibility of patients getting infected increases and their health deteriorates. Certainly, there are serious consequences of having a poor oral care program.
The condition of a patients oral health can have a very significant impact on their overall improvement.
As noted by Salamone, Yacoub, Mahoney and Edward (2013), it is impossible for any health facility to survive without a good oral care program. Arguably, a good oral care program helps to improve the well being of patients. It makes the patients comfortable and gives them confidence.
A good oral care program permits patients to communicate clearly. Salamone, Yacoub, Mahoney and Edward (2013) posit that an effective oral health program helps to meet the nutritional needs of patients and speeds up the recovery process.
According to Quinn and Baker (2015), equipping nurses with the right skills will enable them to protect patients from getting infections. Research indicates that without proper oral care, the condition of patients gets worse when they are admitted.
Among others, oral care supports efforts by hospitals to lessen hospital acquired infections such as pneumonia and urinary associated infections. Providing comprehensive oral care for hospital patients using the right equipment and procedures is regarded as an effective way of ensuring that patients do not get infected once they are admitted.
To promote good health and improve the rate of recovery among hospital patients, it is necessary to have a good oral care program.
The success of the oral care program, however, depends so much on the knowledge, experience, and commitment of nursing staff.
To a large extent, a well managed oral health program helps in lessening the level of new infections for hospital patients. Consequently, hospitals must see to it that they have a good team on the ground to implement and manage their oral care programs.

Implications for Nursing Professionals

According to Soh et al. (2012), oral care is an integral part of the patient treatment. It is particularly useful for patients who require support with activities of their daily lives.
Nursing professionals are thus expected to go out of their way to meet the needs of patients who are not able to fend for themselves.
Clearly, managing effective oral care requires the services of hard working and flexible nursing practitioners.
Nursing practitioners be fully equipped with skills that are necessary for effectiveness and commitment.

Effects of Poor Oral Hygiene

As noted earlier, oral health is often neglected by many health care facilities. This is regardless of the fact that oral health is quite important for effective management of patients.
A poor oral care program majorly makes patients vulnerable to attacks by other infections.
In addition, the work of patients is made very difficult in the absence of a well managed oral care program.
In many hospitals, laxity in implementing a well organized oral care program has been blamed for the increased number of new infections once a patient is admitted.
Proper oral care must thus be implemented in order to strengthen the patients immune system and ensure that they do acquire new infections that eventually compromise their treatment process.

Conclusion

Without a doubt, every hospital must have a well organized oral care program to effectively meet the needs of patients.
Oral care is a very important component of the nursing practice and must therefore be supported by all means.
However, the implementation of a good oral care program requires enormous resources.
As explained earlier, variances exist in the way nurses offer oral care services. There is thus a need to come up with standards to manage the provision of oral care to hospital patients.

References

Quinn, B. & Baker, L. (2015). Comprehensive oral care helps prevent hospital acquired non-ventilator pneumonia. American Nurse Today, 10(3), 18 23.

Salamone, K., Yacoub, E., Mahoney, A. & Edward, K. (2013). Oral Care of Hospitalized Older Patients in the Acute Medical Setting. Nursing Research and Practice 2013, 1 4.

Soh, K. L., Ghazali, S. S., Soh, K. G., Raman, R. A., Abdullah, S. S. S. & Ong, S. L. (2012). Oral Care Practice for the Ventilated Patients in Intensive Care Units: A Pilot Survey. Journal of Infection in Developing Countries, 6(4): 333 339.