The Journal of neuroscience nursing : journal of the American Association of Neuroscience Nurses
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BACKGROUND: Intensive care unit (ICU) patients with severe health problems experience a high rate of sleep deprivation that harms their psychological and physiological health. Environmental factors are considered to be the greatest cause of sleep deprivation in the ICU, and noise and light are leading among these factors. This study aimed to investigate the effect of eye masks and earplugs on the sleep quality and vital signs of conscious ICU patients. ⋯ All the vital signs were found to be similar in the experimental group, except for the mean daily pulse rate. CONCLUSION: The use of earplugs and eye masks may help reduce sleep deprivation. Eye masks and earplugs can be used by nurses to improve the sleep quality of patients in ICUs.
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This reflections article provides insight toward nursing innovations to reduce the overuse of personal protective equipment while maintaining a safe environment for staff taking care of COVID-19 patients. The secondary aim of this article to capitalize on recent advances in mass electronic communication through social media to encourage nurses across the globe to share their knowledge and expertise during this pandemic. ⋯ These strategies are being shared to promote dissemination of innovative nursing interventions that will save lives during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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The 2020 annual meeting of the American Association of Neuroscience Nurses was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a summary of 27 abstracts presented in poster format that were accepted to that meeting.
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A qualitative assessment of discharge resource needs is important for developing evidence-based care improvements in neurocritically ill patients. ⋯ Obtaining qualitative responses after discharge provided insight into the transition from critical care. This could form the basis for an intervention to provide a smoother transition from the ICU to the outpatient setting.
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Pupillary light reflex (PLR) has traditionally been assessed using a pen torch (light). Although the terms "brisk" or "sluggish" are often used, it is unclear what characteristics of the PLR result in this description. More recently, automated infrared pupillometry has enabled us to quantify the different components of a PLR. ⋯ Latency, followed by the constriction velocity, was felt by PICU nurses to be the most important characteristic of the PLR that results in terms "brisk" or "sluggish" being used at the bedside to describe a PLR. We plan to compare these subjective opinions with objective findings from pupillometry.