RESUMO
The hygiene of the patient in critical condition is a common nursing technique in the intensive care unit, which does not mean that doing it is exempt of risk for the patient's state. We carry out a study to measure the frequency of the appearance of certain adverse events during the hygiene care and their clinical repercussion.Hygiene of the critical patients was monitored, measuring the appearance of certain events at the time of hygiene and until one hour after to assess if the complications were at the moment or had a greater repercussion on the state of the patient.During the study period, some adverse event appeared in 48% (CI 95%: 43-52) of the hygiene performed while none appeared in 52% (CI 95%: 48-56) of it. The events that appeared most frequently were: desaturation in 18% (CI 95%: 15-21) of the hygiene performed, the deadaptation of the mechanical ventilation in 11% (CI 95%: 9-14), arterial hypertension in 21% (CI 95%: 18-25) and arterial hypotension in 11% (CI 95%: 9-14). The intracranial hypertension appeared in 42% (CI 95%: 26-61) of the hygiene performed to patients who were carriers of intraventricular catheter, 9% (CI 95%: 2-25) continued with elevated values 1 hour after concluding the hygiene. The rest of the events monitored presented a lower frequency, although the appearance of one episode of cardiorespiratory arrest and two of auricular fibrillation with rapid ventricular response, one of which required cardioversion, stand out. We conclude that it is an essential job of the nursing staff to correctly assess the risks that the performance of hygiene means for the critical patient, so that the technique should be applied rationally and under strict monitoring and control.
