COVID-19 disease: assessment of a critically ill patient

With the major scale up of critical care services to respond to the increasing numbers of patients with severe COVID-19 infection, nurses need to be able to rapidly assess patients. While many patients present with signs of viral pneumonia and may develop respiratory failure, it is essential that the subsequent systemic complications are also recognized. Due to the unprecedented numbers of patients requiring critical care, many of them will initially have to be managed in emergency departments and acute wards until a critical care bed becomes available. In this article, the assessment of a patient with suspected or confirmed severe COVID-19 has been presented initially from a ward perspective, followed by that of critical care, using the Airway, Breathing, Circulation, Disability and Exposure (ABCDE) approach. This article has been specifically designed to enable nurses to systematically assess patients and prioritise care.