Journal of emergency nursing : JEN : official publication of the Emergency Department Nurses Association
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(1) Identify compliance with the standard of practice that trauma patients have body temperature measurement recorded. (2) Describe the range of temperatures in a sample of trauma patients. (3) Identify associations between temperature and other clinical and trauma variables. ⋯ We conclude that a significant proportion of trauma patients brought to a level I trauma center are hypothermic, with temperatures lower in patients more severely injured and in patients who die. Yet temperature measurement, a simple and standard nursing procedure, is often ignored in trauma resuscitation.
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To test the hypothesis that a difference exists between the perception of the nurse and that of the observer regarding the extent of verbal and nonverbal communication that occurs between nurses and trauma victims (and their families) in the emergency setting. ⋯ Nurses report that they are communicating verbally and nonverbally with trauma victims and their families in the emergency setting, but often were not observed to be doing so. Emergency nurses may not be delivering the holistic care and psychosocial support that they believe they are.
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To determine the use pattern of the emergency department by people 65 years of age and older. ⋯ Elderly persons do not misuse the services of the emergency department. They come because they are acutely ill; they are not frequent attenders, and their presenting complaints do require intervention (frequently hospitalization). The study findings are generalizable to the older population in the Hamilton-Wentworth region and raise such questions as whether some hospital admissions could have been avoided by earlier interventions in the community.