Abstract: OBJECTIVE To explore the effect of failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA) on urinary tract infections in patients with indwelling catheter in department of urology. METHODS A total of 374 cases of patients with urological indwelling catheterization from Mar. 2013 to Apr. 2016 in hospital department of urology were selected as the research subjects. The 180 cases from Mar. 2013 to Sep. 2014 were set as control group, and 194 cases of patients admitted from Oct. 2014 to Apr. 2016 were set as intervention group. The control group received routine indwelling catheter care, and the intervention group received FMEA management model on the basis of control group. The incidence and time of occurrence of urinary tract infections were compared between the two groups, the indwelling catheter days, bacteria detection rate and hand hygiene compliance of nursing staff of the two groups were compared, and the urinary tract infection risk priority number (RPN) were calculated and compared between the two groups. RESULTS There were 17 cases of urinary tract infections in intervention group, with the infection rate of 8.76%, and 41 cases of urinary tract infections in control group, with the infection rate of 22.78%, and the difference was significant (P<0.05). The time of occurrence of urinary tract infections in control group was (12.64±3.91) days, which was significantly higher than (8.52±2.44) days of intervention group (P<0.05). The detection rate of urine bacterial culture was 20.56% in intervention group, which was significantly higher than 9.28% in control group (P<0.05). The catheter indwelling duration of the intervention group was 6.8 days(5.5,9.0), significantly shorter than 11.0 days (7.0,13.0) of the control group (P<0.05). The RPN score of intervention group was 375, which was lower than 1216 of control group (P<0.05). The rates of hand hygiene of nursing staff in the intervention group before and after the catheter care, before and after the contact with the patient, and before and after urine sampling were higher than those of control group(P<0.05). CONCLUSION The failure mode and effect analysis can effectively reduce the incidence rate of urinary tract infection in patients with indwelling urethral catheter, and delay the time of infection, which provides a practical and effective pattern basis for urinary tract infections associated with indwelling catheter.