Contribution of Patient Care Technicians to the Prevention of External Ventricular Drain Infection: A Retrospective Study.

BACKGROUND External ventricular drains (EVDs) are commonly used in neurosurgery. Preventing EVD-related infections is important, and nursing plays a significant role in infection control. However, because of the limited number of neurosurgical nurses and heavy workload in developing countries, well-trained patient care technicians (PCTs) might be able to assist nurses under this circumstance. METHODS This study retrospectively screened patients who underwent EVD procedures in our medical center from January 2012 to June 2018. Clinical characteristics including EVD-related infection rates of patients with or without PCTs were compared. RESULTS We analyzed 234 patients in total. There were 26 EVD infection cases, and the overall infection rate was 11.1%. There were 122 patients who were given additional care by PCTs. They were elder (58.1 ± 13.1 vs 49.9 ± 17.0 years old, P < .001) and had lower level preoperational Glasgow Coma Scale (7.04 ± 3.66 vs 13.5 ± 2.53, P < .001) and higher intubation rate (28.7% vs 3.6%, P < .001) than those without PCTs. They also had a longer drainage duration (10.3 ± 4.97 vs 8.01 ± 4.35, P < .001) as well as more cerebrospinal fluid sampling times (2.45 ± 2.00 vs 1.75 ± 1.83, P = .006) and were kept at artificial airway status for a longer duration (10.1 ± 18.7 vs 1.93 ± 7.86, P < .001). External ventricular drain-related infection rates were similar between 2 groups (11.5% vs 10.7%, P = .853). CONCLUSION Patient care technicians with proper training are beneficial to the prevention of EVD-related infection as a measure of improving staffing adequacy.