Nursing in critical care
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Nursing in critical care · Nov 2009
Recovering from the psychological impact of intensive care: how constructing a story helps.
Numerous studies have demonstrated both the risk of post-traumatic stress as a result of intensive care unit (ICU) treatment and the efficacy of successful narrative processing for recovery from psychological trauma. ⋯ ICU follow-up clinics could gain increased clarity of purpose from this narrative conceptual framework, eventually evaluating and validating benchmarks for assessing psychological recovery in relation to specified dimensions of narrative processing. Practice development informed by narrative process theory could also enhance ICU nursing communication. Since story construction is central to a person's core identity processes, person-centred nursing would also be implicated.
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Nursing in critical care · Sep 2009
Interacting with relatives in intensive care unit. Nurses' perceptions of a challenging task.
To describe how Danish intensive care unit (ICU)-nurses perceive personal knowledge and skills (self-efficacy) and outcome expectations to interacting with relatives. Moreover, to explore relationships between self-efficacy and outcome expectations and the nurses' attitude towards involving relatives in care-related tasks and allowing relatives to be with the patient during critical situations. ⋯ The study provides important knowledge to clinicians, educators and managers on how to educate and supervise ICU-nurses to support their efforts to interact proficiently with relatives.
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Nursing in critical care · Sep 2009
Characteristics of deaths in paediatric intensive care: a 10-year study.
To describe the patient mortality over a 10-year period in a paediatric intensive care unit (PICU) including patient demographics, length of stay, cause and mode of death and to compare these findings with pre-existing literature from the western world. ⋯ End-of-life care is an important facet of paediatric intensive nursing/medicine. Ten years on from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health publication 'Withholding or withdrawing life sustaining treatment in children: A framework for practice', this study found managed withdrawal of MWLSMT to be the most commonly practised mode of death in a tertiary PICU, and this was consistent over the study period.
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Nursing in critical care · Sep 2009
Postoperative hyperglycaemia of diabetic patients undergoing cardiac surgery - a clinical audit.
Previous studies have shown that hyperglycaemia is associated with postoperative complications in cardiac surgical patients. Conversely, well-controlled glucose levels are said to reduce major infectious complications in diabetic patients. ⋯ More consistent blood glucose testing might be achieved through the use of evidence-based protocols. However, the education of staff is as important as it develops knowledge on the complex metabolic interactions of diabetic patients undergoing cardiac surgery. While this means investing in staff education and policy development, costs for daily care and expensive treatments for complications will be saved as patient recovery will be speedier and less eventful.