Hygiene - Urinary catheter care: Nursing skills

A urinary catheter is a tube that goes into the bladder that drains urine. This is commonly used in a variety of situations, such as before, during, or after an operation, in order to keep the bladder empty. It’s also used to accurately measure the amount of urine produced by critically ill clients or clients receiving IV therapy, inclients with wounds or pressure ulcers that need to be protected from contact with urine, in clients with urinary obstruction or retention, or to collect sterile urine samples. Catheter care is essential for preventing catheter-associated urinary tract infections, called CAUTIs, because an indwelling catheter is a pathway for bacteria to move up from the perineum into the bladder. This is important because, during normal urination, the urine flow acts as a natural way to “flush” bacteria out of the urinary tract.

Now, the most common types of urine catheters are straight, indwelling, and suprapubic catheters. Both straight and indwelling catheters are inserted into the bladder through the urethra, but the difference is that a straight catheter is removed once the urine is drained, while an indwelling urinary catheter, also called Foley catheter or retention catheter, remains in the bladder and lets the urine drain continuously into a drainage bag. With the suprapubic catheter, “supra-” means above and “pubic” refers to the pubic bone, so it is inserted into the bladder through a surgical incision made above the pubic bone.