Skill of suctioning adult patients with an artificial airway and associated factors among nurses working in intensive care units of Amhara region, public hospitals, Ethiopia

Abstract Background Most patients who are admitted in the intensive care units suffer from an increase in secretions in the airway and difficulty in clearing these secretions due to the existence of artificial airway, decreased ciliary clearance, and defect in the cough reflex. As a result, these patients need suctioning which is the most frequent invasive procedure performed in patients having an artificial airway to remove accumulated secretions. The risks for hemodynamic, respiratory, and neurological compromizations are evident when suctioning procedure is not carried out using the appropriate techniques. Therefore, nurses should apply basic principles prior to, during, and post suctioning. Objective to assess the skill of suctioning adult patients with an artificial airway and associated factors among nurses working in intensive care unit, Amhara Region public hospitals, 2020. Methods Institutional based cross-sectional study design was employed among 200 nurses working in adult intensive care units of Amhara region public hospitals using the census. Data were collected using a standardized self-administered questionnaire and observation checklist. Data were entered using Epi-data version 4.2 and analyzed by SPSS version 25 software. Logistic regression analysis was employed to describe the relationship between the dependent and independent variables. Result In this study, 52(28.9%) with 95%CI (22.8, 35.6) of the participants had a good level of practice whereas 128 (71.1%) with 95% CI (64.4, 77.2) had inadequate practice towards suctioning patients with an artificial airway. Nurses who can access suctioning guidelines were 12 times more likely to practice the good suctioning skill as compared to those who didn’t access guidelines (AOR = 12; 95% CI (4.8, 29)). Besides this, nurses who had good knowledge of suctioning were 27 times more likely to practice good suctioning skills as compared to their counterparts (AOR = 27; 95% CI (8.5, 91)). Conclusion Majority of nurses who were working in the Amhara region adult critical care units had inadequate practice towards suctioning patients with an artificial airway. The major factors associated with the inadequate suctioning skill of nurses in Adult ICU were unavailability of suctioning guidelines and inadequate knowledge towards artificial airway suctioning.