[Intravenous catheters. Use and complications at an infective disease unit]

The purpose of this project is to learn what are the characteristics of using Intravenous Catheters, the complications related to their use, and to evaluate the effectiveness of a treatment protocol for nurses in an infectious illness ward according to a prospective and observational study on 187 cases involving intravenous catheters. Samples were carried out according to protocol. We note the low frequency of infectious complications which we believe is due to the scarce use of central catheters and parenteral nutritional methods as well as the use of a nursing treatment protocol which contributed to this reduction. The cases of non-infectious phlebitis was associated with peripheral catheters and with canalizations which occurred outside our ward. These results were published as a poster at the XXIII Congress of the Andalucian Society of Internal Medicine.