Intensive & critical care nursing : the official journal of the British Association of Critical Care Nurses
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Recognising and responding to clinical deterioration in hospital patients has been promoted by many western countries to improve patient safety. In non-western and developing countries it is likely to be even more important to focus on strategies of patient safety. This paper reflects the services provided by Intensive Care Unit Liaison Nurses (ICULN) in the first year of their work, July 2010-June 2011, in an Argentinean hospital. ⋯ ICULNs provide advanced assessment and surveillance of ICU discharged and complex ward patients, and facilitate ICU-ward transition assisting and educating ward staff. Further evaluation is necessary to better describe the role in Argentina and the effect of ICULN service on patient outcomes and on staff.
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Intensive Crit Care Nurs · Feb 2014
The experience of being a trauma nurse: a phenomenological study.
The lived experience of being a trauma nurse was explored using a phenomenological qualitative research approach. Seven registered nurses employed in a trauma unit from one large metropolitan Canadian teaching hospital participated in in-depth conversational interviews. Data analysis revealed four sub theme clusters embedded within the overarching theme of Seeing Through Cloudy Situations: being on guard all the time, being caught up short, facing the challenge and sharing the journey. Even though trauma nurses are able to find meaning and satisfaction in their work, the findings of this research reveal the need for support and the assurance of safe work environments as trauma nurses can live with violence and aggression in their daily nursing practice.
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Intensive Crit Care Nurs · Feb 2014
A critical ethnographic look at paediatric intensive care nurses and the determinants of nurses' job satisfaction.
The aim of this study is to examine key features within the cultural context in a Canadian Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) environment as experienced by nurses and to identify what these influences are and how they shape nurses' intentions to remain at critically ill children's bedsides for the duration of their careers. This is a qualitative study which follows a critical ethnographic approach. Over 20 hours of observation and face-to-face semi-structured interviews were conducted. ⋯ Family Centred Care (FCC) is practiced in paediatrics and certainly accentuated in the PICU as there is usually only one patient assigned per nurse, who thus afforded the time to provide comprehensive care to both the child and the family. This is considered one of the satisfiers for nurses in the PICU and tends to encourage retention of nurses in the PICU. However, FCC was found to be an inadequate term to truly encompass the type of holistic care provided by nurses in the PICU.
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Intensive Crit Care Nurs · Feb 2014
An exploratory study of staff nurses' knowledge of delirium in the medical ICU: an Asian perspective.
The aim of this study was to establish intensive care unit nurses' knowledge of delirium within an acute tertiary hospital within South East Asia. ⋯ Whilst the results of this study are similar to others taken from a western perspective, it appeared that the ICU nurses in this study demonstrated limited knowledge of the signs and symptoms, risk factors and negative outcomes of delirium in the critically patient. The implications for practice of this are important given the outcomes of untreated delirium.