Role on Nursing Intervention in Urinary Tract Infection Prevention Among Elderly Patients in Nursing Homes

Abstract

The main objective of this bachelor thesis is to analyze the role of nursing intervention in preventing urinary tract infection (UTIs) in the elderly in nursing homes. The paper aims a outlining the nursing interventions used to prevent UTI, as well as examining the challenges that are facing nurses in their efforts to administer the preventive interventions in the long term care setups. Moreover, the study attempts to improve nursing practice by highlighting efficient prevention measures that can support the wellbeing of residents and reduce the unnecessary use of antibiotics. A descriptive literature review was used as a methodology. This was done through the systematic searching of CINAHL and PubMed database where peer – reviewed articles published between the years 2020 and 2025 were located. The inclusion and exclusion criteria were predefined and included studies cantered on the residents aged 65 years and above who stayed in nursing homes and studies that specifically outlined the roles of nurses in the prevention of UTI. After the process of screening titles, abstracts and full texts, ten articles met the inclusion criteria and were included into the final analysis. Its results indicate that the nursing intervention can benefit UTI prevention in nursing homes significantly through the application of multiple nursing interventions. The interventions include the education of the staff, the maintenance of hydration, catheter maintenance, hygiene, and the structured assessment instruments. However, the found they experience multiple challenges that prevent the successful implementation of these interventions namely staffing shortages, high workloads, lac of training opportunities, and communication issues amongst medical professionals. Overall, the research highlights the need to have systematic structured nursing interventions and organisational support to reduce UTI prevenance in elderly patients in long term care centres.