5th Edition of World Nursing Research Conference 2026

Abstract

Critically sick individuals frequently suffer from incontinence-associated dermatitis (IAD), especially if they have diarrhea. To manage IAD in adult intensive care unit patients at Khoulah Hospital in Oman from September to December 2023, this nonrandomized controlled trial sought to assess the safety and efficacy of a topical therapy that involved the combination of 20% zinc oxide with petroleum jelly and 20% zinc oxide ointment alone.

Methods: This study included 75 patients (mean age 44.39±20.29 years; 70.6 male) diagnosed with IAD who were systematically sampled and conveniently assigned to either the intervention group (n=36) receiving a mixture of 20% zinc oxide and petroleum jelly or the control group (n=39) receiving 20% zinc oxide ointment exclusively. A maximum of eight days were spent using both therapies daily. The main result was the IAD healing state, which was evaluated using the Ghent Global IAD Monitoring Tool over a period of three months. The relative risk (RR) of unfavorable results, time to full healing, and safety, including the frequency of skin irritation, were secondary outcomes.

Results: Compared to those in the control group, which had a healing rate of 46.2% (18/39), the healing rate in the intervention group was much greater, at 80.6% (29/36). The percentage of patients in the intervention group who did not heal was 5.6%, whereas that in the control group was 38.5%. Additionally, the average healing periods of the intervention group were marginally longer (7.58±2.14 days) than those of the control group (6.97±1.55 days), while their median healing times were comparable. The intervention group had a significantly lower relative risk of adverse outcomes (RR=0.1419, 95% CI=0.0353 to 0.5708), as indicated by a z-statistic of 2.750 and a P value of 0.006. The number needed to treat (NNT) was 2.56 (95% CI: 1.71 to 5.11). The safety profiles of the two groups were similar; 13.9% of the intervention group and 15.4% of the control group experienced moderate skin irritation, which all went away well.

Conclusion: Despite maintaining a comparable safety profile, the 20% zinc oxide and petroleum jelly combination was more successful at treating IAD than was zinc oxide ointment alone. This approach greatly increased healing rates and decreased the chance of unfavorable results. These findings imply that this combination therapy is a better choice for treating IAD in individuals who are in critical condition.

Keywords: topical treatment, zinc oxide, petroleum jelly, incontinence-associated dermatitis, intensive care unit, healing outcomes, nonrandomized experiment.