THE NURSE'S PERFORMANCE IN THE PREVENTION AND CONTROL OF INFECTIONS IN AN INTENSIVE CARE UNIT

Abstract

Hospital-acquired infections are caused by a combination of factors, including exposure to microbes in a hospital environment, transmission of microbes between patients and staff, and overuse of antibiotics, which can lead to the development of resistant strains of bacteria. Therefore, the related work aims to describe the role of nurses in the prevention  and control of infections in the intensive care unit. This is an integrative literature review, with the character of a descriptive study and a qualitative approach, in which searches were conducted in the Virtual Health Library system of the Ministry of Health, using the following descriptors: Nursing, Hospital infection and Intensive Care Units. Initially, 413 results were found without filters, and later the application was reduced to sixty studies, and of these, their titles resulting from the databases were read, leaving only twelve articles for the sample in the final qualitative synthesis. Through literary analyses, it was clearly verified  that critically ill patients in the ICU are those who require intensive and continuous care  due to their critical health condition. They may be suffering from serious illness, trauma, injury, or post-op and require careful monitoring and constant medical intervention. The role of nursing in the prevention of infections in the ICU is fundamental and involves several activities, such as the implementation of educational and training programs for the team, aimed at raising the awareness of all professionals regarding hygiene practices and preventive measures within the ICU.. These activities also aim to strengthen patient safety through a multidisciplinary approach. This integrative review made it possible to analyze through the scientific literature that some emerging studies suggest that in the ICU, the nursing team closely monitors the patient, using infection control measures, such as hand hygiene, isolation, and universal precautions.