Journal of Emergency Nursing最新文献

Introduction: Documentation templates supported the implementation of HIRAID, a validated framework that supports nurses in assessing and managing patients in emergency departments in rural Australia using a strategy informed by behavior change theory. The study aimed to determine whether the implementation of HIRAID improved the accuracy of nurses' documentation across a large rural health district.

Methods: A Quasi-experimental pre-post study design was conducted across 10 rural emergency departments between November 2020 and November 2021, with HIRAID implemented in February 2021. Retrospective audit of clinical documentation occurred 3 months pre-implementation and repeated at 6-months post. Based on power analysis and a sampling framework, records that met study inclusion were randomized for audit. Documentation accuracy was evaluated, using a modified D-catch instrument, assessing quality and quantity by an experienced research nurse. Data were analyzed with descriptive and inferential statistics.

Results: A review of 222 records (110 pre/112 post), demonstrated an improvement in initial ED nursing assessment documentation. Audit scores increased significantly for quantity of documentation across all areas, in particular history (P < .001) and red flags (P < .001), with a 27.1% increase in all red flags recorded. The quality of documentation also significantly improved across all areas, most notably in history (P < .001) and assessment (P < .001).

Discussion: Implementation of HIRAID demonstrated a sustained improvement in the quantity and quality of emergency nurse documentation. Improved documentation accuracy is key to informing and evaluating ongoing care and supporting communication and continuity of care, and is essential to patient safety.

Introduction: This paper developed and used practice vignettes to understand sexual assault nurse examiners' perceptions of self-confidence to provide care for Black, Indigenous, and transgender sexual violence survivors. Sexual assault nurse examiners are uniquely positioned to provide patient-centered postsexual violence health care but not all sexual assault nurse examiners receive culturally specific and identity-affirming training. Black/African American, Indigenous, and/or transgender people disproportionately experience sexual violence but may receive poorer health care after sexual violence compared with white cisgender people. Understanding sexual assault nurse examiner confidence to provide this care is paramount to improving sexual assault nurse examiner training and patient outcomes.

Methods: In collaboration with a nurse advisory board, researchers developed and validated 3 case vignettes that manipulated the race or gender of the patient. A fourth previously validated vignette that assessed sexual assault nurse examiner care for a transgender patient also was administered. Sexual assault nurse examiners then answered questions about their confidence to provide (1) a patient-centered safety plan, (2) patient-centered referrals, and (3) care without personal biases influencing care. The current study used a cross-sectional online self-report survey with 4 sexual assault nurse examiner patient vignettes randomized across a convenience sample of 70 sexual assault nurse examiners recruited from a midwestern state.

Results: On average, sexual assault nurse examiners rated the vignettes as realistic. Sexual assault nurse examiners reported lower confidence to develop a patient-centered safety plan, provide care without allowing personal biases to influence that care, and provide patient-centered referrals for Black, Indigenous, and/or transgender survivors compared with white cisgender survivors.

Discussion: Training and mentorship programs could improve sexual assault nurse examiner confidence to provide trauma- and violence-informed care for Black, Indigenous, and transgender survivors, and vignettes could be used to measure changes in confidence owing to training.

Introduction: Cognitive impairment in older adults is underrecognized in emergency departments. Despite emergency nurses' central role in facilitating ED screening for clinical and social needs, little is known about their perspectives on implementing delirium and dementia screenings. Nurses can provide insights to promote the uptake of these screenings.

Methods: Using a case study approach, we conducted qualitative interviews with emergency nurses at a public safety net hospital about their perspectives on implementing screening for delirium and dementia. Interview topics were derived from an implementation science framework (Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research). We performed a combined deductive-inductive analysis.

Results: Eleven nurses participated in interviews. Four overarching themes were identified. Emergency nurses viewed safety as the core function of screening. Emergency nurses identified adequate staffing, private care spaces, and electronic medical record support as important resources required to support screening implementation. Nurses perceived benefits of screening ED patients for cognitive impairment specifically related to hazards of ED boarding. However, they simultaneously found screenings complex and incompatible with their workflows and available health system resources.

Discussion: Emergency nurses conceptualize screenings in terms of patient safety, which may be the best way to frame initiatives to implement screenings for cognitive impairment. In light of ED crowding and boarding's impacts on patient safety, nurses highlighted screening for cognitive impairment as increasingly relevant. However, they found current working conditions of delivering patient care in waiting rooms and hallways not conducive to implementing screenings. Using the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research framework helped identify workflow limitations that are barriers to ED screening.

Introduction: Despite routine screening for intimate partner violence and validated screening tools for lethality, intimate partner violence assessment and linkage to services remain inconsistent in health care settings. This program aimed to implement and evaluate a lethality assessment program, a nurse-led screening and prevention program for intimate partner violence homicide in an emergency department that partnered with a local community agency.

Methods: A single group pre-post design was used to evaluate changes in knowledge of intimate partner violence and the lethality assessment program protocol and confidence in implementing the protocol among 143 registered nurses in the emergency department. Program outcomes were assessed during a 4-month post-implementation period. Focus group interviews were conducted and analyzed to identify barriers and facilitators of implementation.

Results: Significant improvements in the nurses' knowledge and confidence in implementing the protocol (all P< .001) were observed. Fourteen lethality screens were completed during the 4 months, with 13 indicating high intimate partner violence homicide danger. Eight victims received 20 services (1-5/person) from the local community organization: emergency shelter, safety planning, legal aid, and domestic violence protection order. Barriers to implementation included time, privacy, training, and access to screening forms. Facilitators included champions, resources to allow for implementation, and prompts.

Discussion: The lethality assessment program is a feasible protocol in a health care setting to increase intimate partner violence awareness, link high-risk intimate partner violence victims to needed services in real time, and potentially reduce intimate partner violence homicides. Programs like this are essential to address this public health concern.

The number 1 reason children 15 years of age and younger present to the emergency department is fever. To successfully address this common chief complaint, a consistent message must be sent by all health care team members. This consistent message must demonstrate a solid knowledge of the physiology of fever, which includes the benefits of fever and the pattern of fever during an illness. In addition, treatment of fever must be evidence based with a goal of comfort rather than normothermia. Nurses must address caregivers' concerns and consider the age, medical history, and clinical presentation of the child with fever when determining the appropriate triage level and management.

Introduction: Behavioral health visits to emergency departments have increased, increasing the risk of patient violent agitation that may require restraints to control. Our objective was to determine whether using the Behavioral Activity Rating Scale and treatment recommendations matched to patient scores would affect the number of patients who required physical restraints during their stay in the emergency department.

Methods: In this quality improvement project, nursing performed Behavioral Activity Rating Scale assessments on all behavioral health patients who presented to the emergency department, occurring during triage and at regular intervals with vital signs. Data were collected for a period before implementation and compared with data collected after implementing the Behavioral Activity Rating Scale workflow. Patients who required restraints during their stay, patients who required 2 or more restraints during their stay, and timing of restraint application were analyzed.

Results: Results show a decrease in the number of patients who required restraints during their ED stay, decreasing from a rate of 8.7% to 7.0% (P = .02). There was also a decrease in the number of patients who required multiple restraints, from a rate of 82.2% to 27.2% (P < .001). There was no difference in the number of patients who required restraints 1 hour after their arrival before versus after intervention (P = .40).

Discussion: Early recognition of patient agitation is essential in appropriate treatment of that agitation. The Behavioral Activity Rating Scale assessment is an effective tool to quantify a patient's agitation level. When coupled with treatment recommendations or protocols, it may decrease restraint use in the emergency department.

Introduction: This study aimed to explore how nurses experience relational work in the emergency department.

Methods: A qualitative design with 34 focus group interviews using an abductive thematic analysis were completed for this study. Participants were recruited from an annual mandatory continuous learning program in 2020-2022 at 2 university hospitals in the Capital Region of Denmark. We applied semistructured interviews in an instructor-supported reflection session on the topic "relational nursing care." Group discussion was supported by an interview guide addressing key elements of the nurse-patient relationship as described in the fundamentals of care framework.

Results: Acute care nurses' attention was primarily directed toward the initial patient assessment, rather than toward the later stages of the patient trajectory. Forming a relationship with the patient was highly individual and done at the discretion of each nurse. The key elements of relational nursing were not mutually exclusive, but the findings could be separated into biomedical and relational care, where biomedical tasks took precedence.

Discussion: Relational care in the emergency department is optional and individually performed. Moreover, emergency nurses lack a vocabulary to express this type of work. Consequently, there is a risk that patients' psychosocial needs are not sufficiently met. According to the emergency nurses participating in this study, nurses fall short when performing and describing relational care. Nurses need more knowledge to address the psychosocial patient needs during short-term hospital admissions. Relational care and patient centeredness also need to be acknowledged by nursing leaders and further developed.