BAÑO DEL PACIENTE CON CLORHEXIDINA EN UNIDAD DE CUIDADOS INTENSIVOS PARA LA PREVENCIÓN DE INFECCIONES ASOCIADAS A LA ATENCIÓN EN SALUD

Abstract

Introduction: Infectious diseases imply a global concern, they constitute the second leading cause of death. Healthcare-associated infections (HAI) are a source of morbidity and mortality. Biocides play an important role in the prevention of bacterial infections, being used more frequently in intensive care units (ICU) where there is a higher incidence of infections caused by multidrug-resistant bacteria. In recent years, the use of chlorhexidine as a protective measure against HAI has been increasing. Objective: To analyze the relevance of patient bathing with chlorhexidine in the ICU for the prevention of HAI. Materials and methods: Descriptive review using the collection of specialized information from research and clinical studies at both descriptive, theoretical, and experimental levels focused on the use of chlorhexidine for patients with critical conditions in databases: Scopus, PubMed, Medline, Scielo, Cinhal and Latindex using the search equation "Chlorhexidine and ICU", in Spanish, English and Portuguese between the years 2019 and 2023. Results: When applying the search criteria, 128 research articles were identified, after a more rigorous selection, 40 documents that did not meet the criteria for this analysis were excluded, since they were duplicates. In the second phase of exclusion, from a total of 88 articles, documents with insufficient content are discarded, obtaining a total of 41 articles that fully meet the criteria for the systematic review. Conclusions: Chlorhexidine bathing is an effective alternative to reduce the acquisition and colonization of multidrug-resistant gram-positive bacteria. However, more evidence needs to be gathered to demonstrate whether it ultimately reduces infection, length of hospital stays, and mortality in critically ill patients taking into account variations in implementation plans.