ABSTRACT
Urinary catheterization is a common procedure in the care and treatment of hospitalized patients and bacteriuria is associated with complications and decreased quality of healthcare services. Applying any safe and cost benefit action to reduce or prevent it is of great importance which using the antiseptic solutions, is one of them. It seems that doing the procedure with clean method alike to sterile method is safe and using water is preferred to antiseptic solutions due to economical reasons, availability, and not having side effects. The present study was therefore conducted to compare the effects of water vs. povidone -iodine solution for periurethral cleaning prior to urinary catheterization on bacteriuria. A clinical trial study design was carried out with a sample of 60 hospitalized women drawn from gynecology unit of Shaheed Sadoughi Hospital in Yazd. They were selected through random sampling, and were allocated in two groups. After registering the participants' demographic data, the urine culture samples were sent to laboratory. The samples with more than 10[3] bacteriuria were recognized and the microorganisms were recorded. All statistics were computed by the SPSS software data. Overally, 18.3% of the participants had shown bacteriuria which was 20% using water and 16.7% using povidone -iodine solution. The difference between the groups wasn't significant [P=0.5]. The contributor microorganisms in water group were Stafilococco aureo [6.65%], escherichia coli [10%], Enterococcus [3.35%] and in povidone -iodine solution group were gram positive cocci [3.35%] estafilococo [3.35%], streptococ [3.35%] and escherichia coli [6.65%] which weren't significantly different [P=0.5]. The findings indicated that there were no significant differences between groups. It seemed that using povidone -iodine solution didn't reduce the rate of bacteriuria more than water. As applying water has no side effects and is more beneficial economically, it could be recommended for peri urethral cleaning prior to urinary catheterization in short term