Introduction
Pressure injuries are a hospital-acquired condition that frequently emerges in environments where patients stay immobile for extended periods, such as intensive care units. These wounds are generally preventable and associated with significant harm, extending the patient’s length of stay, worsening outcomes, and causing financial damage. Their prevalence mostly stems from inadequate knowledge on the part of care providers to prevent the issue, and a PICOT question may be asked:
Do patients (P) benefit from nurse education on pressure injuries (I) compared to current practices (C) through a reduction in the manifestation of the issue in intensive care units (O) over half a year (T)?
Evidence-Based Solution
Nurses can prevent pressure injuries without needing specialized devices or medication by regularly inspecting patients to identify and address risks. However, they have to know which signs they should look for and which patients are likely to be at risk of manifesting the condition. Once they have that knowledge, they should be capable of taking measures to address the possibility and reduce pressure injury incidence (Henry and Foronda, 2017). As such, the intervention should focus on educating nurses about the causes and signs of the issue.
Nursing Intervention
Nurses should receive the knowledge required of them via small-scale training sessions, as the method has proven effective in the past. Hassan (2018) describes a method where the trainer uses a doll for demonstration in the case of an infant and notes that the pressure injury rate among children fell as a result. The same methodology should be applied to adults, though a similar demonstration may be problematic. Instead, the sessions should focus on nurses’ current patient care knowledge, as they should be capable of adjusting the patient’s condition to avoid pressure injuries if they know the possible causes.
Patient Care
The prevention of the condition involves the identification of the patients who are the most at risk of developing it and subsequent inspection of their condition. Amirah et al. (2019) highlight age, body mass index, and length of stay as highly relevant risk factors. Once the nurse identifies a patient in danger of developing a pressure injury in a specific area, he or she can reposition the person or introduce accommodations so that the body part is safe. As a result, the emergence of the issue will halt, and the area will be able to recover.
Health Care Agency
The risk factors above are all associated with reduced mobility, as senior, overweight, and severely ill patients are prone to having issues moving. As such, intensive care units at various hospitals are the area that warrants the intervention the most. Patients in that department are likely to rarely leave their beds and struggle with movement and repositioning, especially if unconscious. Nurses have to be prepared to address their issues, even if people do not complain. Other departments should also receive the training, but it is not as critical in fields where the patients do not stay for long.
Nursing Practice
The intervention contributes to nursing by ensuring that members of the profession learn about the latest practices and put them into action. With this knowledge, they can conduct further research and determine superior detection or reduction methods. Overall, the quality of care will improve, and patient outcomes will be better, as a result, contributing towards the goal of nursing. Overall, the proposal will advance the concept of evidence-based practice and ensure that medical professionals follow the latest standards.
References
Amirah, M. F. Y., Rasheed, A. M. Y., Parameaswari, P. J., Awajeh, A. M., Issa, M. R., & Abdallah, M. (2019). Pressure injury prevalence and risk factors among adult critically ill patients at a large intensive care unit. Journal of Intensive Critical Care, 5(2). Web.
Hassan, E. (2018). A. Impact of educational guidelines about prevention of pressure injuries among infants in intensive care unit. Nursing Health Care, 4(1), 1-10.
Henry, M., & Foronda, C. (2018). Evaluation of evidence-based nursing education of hospital acquired pressure injury prevention in clinical practice: An integrative review. Journal of Nursing Education and Practice, 8(1), 9-15.