Nursing Interventions

NURSES ' IDENTIFICATION AND INTERVENTIONS OF ANXIETY INDICATORS AMONG CRITICALLY ILL PATIENTS

Abdul-Aziz A Ba-Alwi*, Azza H EL- Soussi**, Nagwa A Reda***, Maha M Gaffer**** *Assistant lecturer Sana 'a University Republic of Yemen, **Professor of Critical Care Nursing, Faculty of Nursing, Alexandria University.

***Assistant Professor of Critical Care Nursing, Faculty of Nursing, Alexandria University. ****Lecturer of psychiatric and mental health nursing, Faculty of Nursing, Alexandria University.

Abstract

Anxiety is the most common psychological problem experienced by critically

- What are the nursing interventions used by CCNs to alleviate anxiety among critically ill patients?

Materials and method

Material

Design: a descriptive exploratory design was used in this study.

Settings: This study was conducted in the intensive care units of Alexandria Main University hospital namely: The casualty care unit (unit I), General ICU (unit III), Post surgeries ICU, Coronary care unit, Open heart surgery ICU, Respiratory ICU

Subjects: All CCNs involved in providing direct patient care, working in the intensive care units of the Alexandria Main University hospital in the above mentioned settings, regardless of their experience period in the ICUs and their qualification in nursing. The nurses were 140 nurses after excluding the nurses who refused to share in the study.

Tool: "Critical Care Nurses’ Anxiety Identification and Management Tool": this tool was adopted from Frazier et al. 2002 (7), and used by the researcher to collect the study data .This tool includes three

• Each nurse was individually interviewed. The researcher explained the purpose of the study to the nurses. Verbal consent to participate in the study was obtained.

• Nurses completed the demographic information (part I).Then they were asked to identify the importance of each indicator on a 3-point, Likert-type scale. Two blank areas were provided for nurses who wish to add indicators other than those listed in the sheet. At the end of part II, subjects were requested to select the 5 most important indicators of the anxiety and to rank the indicators in descending order from first to fifth most important.

• Then the nurses were asked to describe how often they use each strategy for nursing interventions to manage anxiety for critically ill patients (part III). The reported nursing interventions were categorized as care communication and support strategies or technique strategies.Two blank areas were provided so that subjects could list other strategies that they may use in clinical practice to manage anxiety among their critical care patients.