Intensive & critical care nursing : the official journal of the British Association of Critical Care Nurses
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Intensive Crit Care Nurs · Dec 2005
Comparative StudyPerformance of the Faces Anxiety Scale in patients transferred from the ICU.
Intensive Care Unit (ICU) patients are often not able to respond to long self-report instruments, therefore, in order to assess anxiety accurately, a short and easy to use measure is required. The Faces Anxiety Scale (FAS) developed by McKinley et al. [McKinley S, Coote K, Stein-Parbury J. Development and testing of a faces scale for the assessment of anxiety in critically ill patients. ⋯ The study was a part of a larger study of transfer anxiety. The FAS showed good correlation with the anxiety sub-scale of the HADS which strengthened over time. The FAS was easy and quick to use and seemed to measure anxiety in ICU patients that were ready to move to the wards, however, further testing in a larger sample and with sicker ICU patients is required.
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Intensive Crit Care Nurs · Dec 2005
Nurse-led discharge to the ward from high dependency: a service improvement project.
Nurse-led discharge from the High Dependency Unit (HDU) was introduced in 2002 with the aim of improving access to level 2 beds (beds offering higher level of support and observation; ). The project has yet to be formally evaluated but there have been perceived benefits for both patients and staff.
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Intensive Crit Care Nurs · Dec 2005
Critical care without walls: The role of the nurse consultant in critical care.
The nurse consultant role was first described in 1999 and has undergone little evaluation since. Critical care nurse consultant roles have developed against a background of service innovation following a review of adult critical care and have resulted in a variety of job roles and titles. There is some evidence to suggest that these posts are developing differentially and with varied role content. ⋯ The critical care nurse consultants who responded to this survey were clinically experienced and educated to an advanced level. They were leading the care of critically ill patients outside the traditional boundaries of the ICU, but have significantly less involvement within the ICU. Nurse consultants' restricted involvement with strategic organisations may limit the development of the role.