Does Silver Alloy Coated Foley Catheters Reduce Urinary Catheter Research Paper

Does Silver Alloy Coated Foley Catheters Reduce Urinary Catheter Infections - Research Paper Example The use of catheters causes one of the most common health associated infections and is known as CAUTI or Catheters Associated Urinary Tract Infections. As CAUTI can deteriorate into a serious condition, preventive steps have to be taken to minimize it in the hospital environment as well as in other settings. One of the steps that are being carried out is the use of Foley catheters coated with silver alloy. These catheters, when used as part of indwelling catheterization, are said to reduce CAUTI sizably. Although other studies show that it provides only negligible positive results. So, this paper after analyzing six journal articles, its purpose, its results, strengths and weaknesses, will discuss whether silver alloy coated Foley catheters reduces UTI. The article, Audit of catheter-associated UTI using silver alloy-coated Foley catheters written by Coral Seymour discusses the advantages of using the silver alloy-coated Foley catheter in reducing the threat of CAUTI in an acute gene ral hospital. As part of the study, even before the use of silver alloy coated Foley catheters, the standard catheters were used for 10 weeks on particular patients and the prevalence of CAUTI was audited. Silver alloy-coated Foley catheters there were introduced among 117 newly catheterized patients, and they were monitored for signs of CAUTI for another 10 weeks. Then the results were audited and analyzed, and it clearly emerged that CAUTI incidence rate has decreased by 20%. Although, the period of 10 weeks for monitoring may seem little short to fully analyze the course of UTI, the fact that emerged is â€Å"silver alloy-coated Foley catheters proved to be cost-effective given the recognized additional costs of CAUTI and prolonged in-patient stay† (Seymour, 2006). The article, A prospective, controlled, randomized study of the effect of a slow-release silver device on the frequency of urinary tract infection in newly catheterized patients was authored by Reiche et al., an d it focuses on the efficacy of silver ions releasing systems including silver alloy coated Foley catheters regarding CAUTI. The study focused on 213 patients as part of a prospective controlled randomized trial. At the end of the trial, the authors state that there were reductions in UTI among subjects, who either used antibacterial devices like the Unometer 400 metering system or PP 2000N closed urine-bag system, as well as coated Foley catheter. However, the limitation with this study is, the difference between infection and non-infection in the subjects were not statistically significant (P < 0.05). In addition, the authors come to the conclusion that modifications to the Foley catheters and the urine-collecting systems in the form of silver coating and silver releasing may yield positive results, care should be taken to block the internal and external pathways of infection. In the article, The efficacy of silver alloy-coated urinary catheters in preventing urinary tract infecti on: a meta-analysis written by Sanjay Saint et al. discusses about the effectiveness of not only silver alloy coated Foley catheters, but also silver oxide coated ones as well. Instead of conducting trials directly, â€Å"published or unpublished articles were sought using MEDLINE, reference review, and correspondence with original authors, catheter manufacturers,