For decades, patients in the UK have been strictly advised by healthcare professionals to use single-use catheters to prevent urinary tract infections (UTIs), leaving no choice for those wanting to use the more environmentally sustainable reusable options.<\/p>\n
The Southampton study followed 578 participants across a 12-month period, split into two groups \u2013 one of which stuck to single-use tubes.<\/p>\n
The other group used both the reusable and single-use catheters, and were given a kit to wash them in soap and water, followed by a soak in chlorine solution.<\/p>\n
Scientists found 29% of those in the mixed-use group had at least one UTI during the year, compared to about 34% of those who used a fresh one each time.<\/p>\n
Lead author Prof Mandy Fader, of the university’s School of Health Sciences, said: “Until now, there has been a real lack of high-quality evidence to support the reuse of catheters.<\/p>\n
“But, with our study, we can say for the first time that it is a safe option to switch to reusable catheters.”<\/p>\n
According to the research team, a box of 30 single-use catheters can cost about \u00a350. Reusable catheters in the trial cost less than 10p per use and can be reused for a month. <\/p>\n
They claimed that if just 25% of patients made the switch, the NHS could save millions of pounds.<\/p>\n
The landmark study, published in the International Journal of Nursing Studies, was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For decades, patients in the UK have been strictly advised by healthcare professionals to use single-use catheters to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":726946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[64,63,137,500],"class_list":["post-726945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-health","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=726945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/726946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=726945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=726945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=726945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}