Study Assesses Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia Prevention

A patient-to-nurse ratio greater than 1 to 1 is not associated with an increased likelihood that patients receiving mechanical ventilation will develop ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), concludes a study published December 31, 2010, in the American Journal of Critical Care. Although a patient-to-nurse ratio of 1 to 1 appears to be associated with a lower risk for VAP, the difference is not significant after adjustments are made for confounding variables.

The study includes data from an observational survey conducted in 27 intensive care units in nine European countries: Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, and Turkey. VAP occurred in 393 of the 1,658 patients (23.7%)...