Effects of dry and traditional bed bathing on respiratory parameters: a randomized pilot study.

OBJECTIVE

to compare the time for performance of dry and traditional bed bathing and its effects on transcutaneous arterial oxygen saturation and respiratory rates in critical adult patients.

METHOD

pilot study of a randomized, open, crossover clinical trial, performed with 15 adult critically ill patients. Each patient received a dry and a traditional bed bath. Analysis of variance with repeated measures was used, adopting p-value ≤ 0.05.

RESULTS

most patients were male (73.3%), white (66.7%), with a mean age of 69.7 years. The dry bath was faster (20.0 minutes) than the traditional bath (30.0 minutes) (p<0.001). There was no significant difference between the patients' saturation means between baths (p=0.381), with 94.7% for the dry bath and 95.2% for the traditional bath. During the traditional bath, the patients' respiratory rate mean was higher (24.2 incursions per minute) and statistically different (p<0.001) from the value obtained for the dry bath (20.5 incursions per minute).

CONCLUSION

the dry bath had a shorter duration than did the traditional bath, resulting in less patient exposure. The traditional bed bath had a negative effect on patients' respiratory rate, increasing it. Brazilian Registry of Clinical Trials (ReBEC): RBR-5qwkqd.