Delirium care burden of intensive care nurses caring for patients undergoing open-heart surgery: A mixed-method research.

Background: Delirium is an acute confusional state characterized by inattention, cognitive dysfunction and an altered level of consciousness. Delirium causes negative outcomes in patients, and patients with delirium increase the workload of nurses. Therefore, it is important to recognize the challenges and burdens experienced by nurses caring for patients with delirium.

Aim: To determine the subjective burden experienced by intensive care nurses caring for patients who have undergone open-heart surgery.

Study design: A mixed-method sequential explanatory design. A non-probability purposive sampling method was used for the quantitative stage. Using OpenEpi, we employed the method of sample calculation with an unknown universe. The sample size of the quantitive study comprised 130 nurses. Quantitative data were collected with Google survey. For gathering qualitative data, online video interviews were conducted with 10 nurses, an interpretive phenomenological approach was used and content analysis was performed.

Results: In the quantitative phase, we found that the subjective burden was high. In the qualitative phase, five main themes emerged: difficulty in recognizing delirium, physical burden, emotional burden, burden in care management of patients with delirium and the effect of patients with delirium on other patients. The nurses experienced physical and emotional burden in delirium management and felt lonely while caring for patients with delirium.

Conclusions: Because nurses play a key role in the care of patients with delirium, reducing the burden nurses experience when caring for patients with delirium should be considered important in ensuring that this patient population receives adequate care.

Relevance to clinical practice: Delirium patients create a care burden for intensive care nurses. To reduce this burden of care, in-service training in patient management and bedside teaching support should be provided to nurses. Furthermore, the use of a valid scale to diagnose delirium should be integrated into health policies. Nurses should not be left alone in the management of delirium. Managing delirium patients with a team including physicians, nurses and professionals from other health disciplines will ensure that patients receive high-quality care, thereby reducing the care burden of nurses.