Pediatric nursing
-
Oral hygiene significantly affects children's well being. It is an integral part of intensive and critical care nursing because intubated and ventilated children in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) are dependent on the health care team to tend to their everyday basic needs. Fourteen articles were identified as being relevant to pediatric oral care in the PICU. ⋯ Research and a local, informal audit found the provision of oral hygiene care to PICU children varied widely and was often inadequate. Children in the PICU need their mouths regularly assessed and cleaned. Maintaining consistent, regular, and standardized oral hygiene practices in the PICU will also set an example for children and their families, encouraging and teaching them about the life-long importance of oral hygiene.
-
Due to medical advances in surgery and anesthesia and cost of hospital stays, more elective pediatric surgical procedures are being performed in outpatient settings. One proposed advantage of outpatient surgery is decreased anxiety or a shorter period of anxiety for pediatric patients and their families because they are able to go home shortly after the surgery. A literature review was conducted to describe anxiety experienced by pediatric patients and their families in the outpatient surgery setting and to explore ways to decrease that anxiety. ⋯ Developmentally appropriate pre-surgical educational programs and parental involvement in the surgical experience can help alleviate the anxiety of both children and parents during the pediatric surgical experience. Nurse practitioners (NPs) are currently being used in pre-operative outpatient settings to conduct physical examinations and provide pre-op education. Pre-op education programs provided by NPs are beneficial in decreasing the anxiety state among children and parents prior to surgery.
-
Although parental presence during medical resuscitation of children has been a common practice for years, the same opportunity has rarely been available for families in pediatric trauma resuscitation. Blank Children's Hospital is an exception; for three years, the hospital has had a successful program for family presence in pediatric trauma resuscitation. ⋯ Chaplains were approached and then trained to serve as family support persons during trauma resuscitation. Families have been receptive to and pleased with the opportunity to be present during trauma resuscitation of their children.
-
Review Case Reports
Transition from pediatric to adult health care for adolescents with congenital heart disease: a review of the literature and clinical implications.
As medical and surgical techniques advance in modern health care, children and adolescents with congenital heart disease (CHD) are living well into their adult years. Their complex cardiac anatomy, physiology, and medical histories present a challenge to adult health care providers who are not traditionally educated and trained in CHD. ⋯ There are little data on the most successful way to transition adolescents and young adults into adult-centered CHD programs. The purpose of this review is to reveal the need for transition into appropriate care and lifelong follow up for adolescents and young adults with CHD, and highlight the role of a pediatric nurse practitioner as a transition coordinator in a pediatric cardiology clinic.
-
This study evaluated the influence of parental use of Parents' Post-Operative Pain Measure (PPPM) on 1 to 2-year-old children's pharmacological pain alleviation at home. Fifty parents whose child had undergone day surgery in three University Hospitals in Finland between January 2006 and June 2007 completed questionnaires. Parents of the intervention group (n=29) were provided with PPPM as an intervention to promote children's pain relief at home, while parents in the control group (n=1) did not receive the PPPM. ⋯ The parents of the intervention group did not consider analgesics to be helpful more often than the parents in the control group. In conclusion, the use the PPPM may promote parents' management of their child's post-operative pain at home. Larger samples in further studies are needed to verify the findings of this study.