Intensive & critical care nursing : the official journal of the British Association of Critical Care Nurses
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Intensive Crit Care Nurs · Jun 2000
ReviewBuilding a framework for getting evidence into critical care education and practice.
One challenge for nurse educators is how best to enhance the integration of theory and practice elements in relation to critical care nursing. Practice should be evidence-based, i.e. the best available empirical evidence, including recent research findings, should be applied in practice in order to aid clinical decision-making. Barriers to the implementation of research exist at many levels including the individual practitioner, the clinical team, the practice setting and wider organizational factors. ⋯ The purpose of this paper is to discuss the value and use of these frameworks in promoting and raising awareness of the need for and use of evidence-based approaches to critical care education and practice. In this paper, we present outline information relating to an assessment method, adopted for continuing education courses in critical care within our department. This approach is designed to combine the best available evidence with reflective practice through the assessment process.
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Intensive Crit Care Nurs · Jun 2000
Comparative Study Clinical Trial Controlled Clinical TrialThe standard of suction for patients undergoing endotracheal intubation.
The purpose of this study was to determine whether using a standard method of endotracheal suctioning, to ensure consistent use of available knowledge, had any impact on patient care. Using experimental study design, the results of two different methods of suctioning in a cardiovascular surgery intensive care unit were compared. One method was the suctioning procedure applied by the nurses working in the intensive care unit. ⋯ Mean arterial blood pressure (MAP), heart rate (HR), and arterial blood gases (ABGs) were measured before the procedure, immediately after, 5 and 15 minutes after the procedures for both control and experimental group. The majority of the nurses suctioning the control group did not evaluate the ABGs after endotracheal suctioning, none of these patients was given oxygen both before and after the suctioning, and suctioning took longer time than recommended. To compare the results of the two different methods, the values of MAP, HR, PO2 (arterial oxygenation), PCO2 (arterial carbondioxide), and HCO3- (hydrogen carbonate) 15 minutes after the procedure were used, and the differences between the two methods were statistically significant (P < 0.05).
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Intensive Crit Care Nurs · Jun 2000
Intensive care nurses' experiences of caring. Part 2: Research findings.
In considering the concept of caring, this second paper presents the research findings obtained from a phenomenological study conducted to answer the question 'what is caring for nurses working in intensive care?'. Unstructured, in-depth interviews were conducted to collect data on the experiences of nine staff nurses, who volunteered to participate in the study. Three major themes were drawn from the data using Colaizzi's procedure of inductive reduction. ⋯ A resultant description of caring identified that these nurses participated in delivering three types of caring involving physical, technical and emotional labour. These were 'being close', 'being there' and 'doing to'. Implications for nursing practice, education and further research are suggested.