To develop a prone position management program and evaluate its effectiveness in preventing ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) in children with congenital heart disease combined with acute respiratory distress syndrome, in order to provide experience for clinical application.

This was a quasi-experimental study. Convenient sampling method was used to select children with congenital heart defect who underwent mechanical ventilation in the Cardiothoracic Surgical Care Unit of Shanghai Children′s Medical Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, School of Medicine from June 2018 to December 2021 as the study subjects. The control group consisted of 80 hospitalized children from June 2018 to December 2019. They were used general nursing interventions to prevent VAP. The 42 hospitalized children from January 2020 to December 2021 were the intervention group, who usd the prone position management program on the basis of the control group. The differences in the incidence of VAP, duration of mechanical ventilation, duration of ICU stay, oxygenation index and the incidence of adverse events between the two groups were compared.

The incidence of VAP and mechanical ventilation duration in the intervention group were 4.8% (2/42) and 67.50 (55.00/101.50), which were lower than 35.0% (28/80) and 92.50 (68.00/142.00) of the control group, and the differences were statistically significant (χ²=11.98, Z=3.40, both P<0.01). And the trend of increasing oxygenation index with the intervention group was better than the control group (F=8.38, P<0.05). There was no statistical difference in the incidence of adverse events between the two groups (all P>0.05).

The application of prone ventilation program with congenital heart disease children complicated with acute respiratory distress syndrome is safe and can significantly improve the oxygenation index, shorten the duration of mechanical ventilation and reduce the incidence of VAP.

Ventilator-associated pneumonia; Congenital heart disease; Prone position