• Breanna Hetland, Jill Guttormson, Mary Fran Tracy, and Linda Chlan.
• College of Nursing, University of Nebraska Medical Center, 985330 Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE, USA. Electronic address: breanna.hetland@unmc.edu.
• Aust Crit Care. 2018 May 1; 31 (3): 153-158.

IntroductionCritical care nurses are responsible for administering sedative medications to mechanically ventilated patients. With significant advancements in the understanding of the impact of sedative exposure on physiological and psychological outcomes of ventilated patients, updated practice guidelines for assessment and management of pain, agitation, and delirium in the intensive care unit were released in 2013. The primary aim of this qualitative study was to identify and describe themes derived from critical care nurses' comments regarding sedation administration practices with mechanically ventilated patients.MethodsThis is a qualitative content analysis of secondary text data captured through a national electronic survey of members of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses. A subsample (n = 67) of nurses responded to a single, open-ended item at the end of a survey that evaluated nurses' perceptions of current sedation administration practices.FindingsMultiple factors guided sedation administration practices, including individual patient needs, nurses' synthesis of clinical evidence, application of best practices, and various personal and professional practice perspectives. Our results also indicated nurses desire additional resources to improve their sedation administration practices including more training, better communication tools, and adequate staffing.ConclusionsCritical care nurses endorse recommendations to minimise sedation administration when possible, but a variety of factors, including personal perspectives, impact sedation administration in the intensive care unit and need to be considered. Critical care nurses continue to encounter numerous challenges when assessing and managing sedation of mechanically ventilated patients.Copyright © 2018 Australian College of Critical Care Nurses Ltd. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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