Results
In this study, the effects of three common respiratory tract humidification methods were evaluated. There were 150 patients included in our study with the ages ranged between 18 to 70 years old. The average age, average in-hospital day, gender distribution, and GCS score distribution showed no difference among three groups (Table 1). The blood oxygen partial pressure, blood oxygen saturation and respiratory frequency showed no difference in Group B and C. The blood oxygen partial pressure and blood pressure saturation were significantly lower in Group A than those in Group B and C, and the respiratory frequency in Group A was statistically higher than that in group B and C (P<0.05) (Table 2).
As Table 3 showed that, the distribution of viscosity degree of airway sputum showed that the degree of sputum viscosity showed an increasing trend during the first 7 days, suggesting that the changes might be significant in the following days. With the time of tracheotomy goes, the viscosity degree of airway sputum in group A had the fastest progressing and patients in group A was easy to form high-level viscous sputum. Table 4 indicated that the humidification effects statistically differed among three groups, (P< 0.05), group A was prone to occur insufficient or excessive humidification, and patients in group B and C gained the highest ratio of appropriate humidification. Method A had the least sputum intake times, while method B and C had similar more times, indicating an equal humidification effects. In group A, scab formation was significantly more than that in groups B and C (P<0.05). The incidence of airway spasm was significantly increased (P< 0.05) in groups A than in group B and group C . After compared the degree of secondary infection in the first 7 days (Table 5), we observed that the secondary pneumonia occurred in both three groups, and the heating and humidification group showed the lowest infection ratio (P< 0.05), but the composition of the infection degree showed no difference in three groups . The secondary pneumonia on the 30th day showed that, the infection ratio showed no difference among three groups, but the infection degree was significantly differed. The number of people with the third infection degree is significantly less in group C (P< 0.05), while there was no difference was found between groups A and B.
The results (table 6) showed that the group A had the lowest average daily nursing times, as well as the nursing load, but there was no difference between groups B and C. The result of occupational satisfaction survey found that the work intensity was significantly higher in group B and C than that of group A in the inner satisfaction scale of the nurse staff (P< 0.05), and no statistical difference was found in other items (table 8).