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Abstract

Background: In cerebrovascular diseases, the risk of mortality is high, especially in the acute phase. Since cerebrovascular diseases cause prominent loss of functioning among its survivors, these patients also require long term assistance and care.

Objective: Determine the nursing care needs of acute cerebrovascular disease patients in the intensive care unit and the nursing interventions provided for them.

Methodology: In this retrospective study, the cohort method was used. The sample consisted of 43 patient files admitted with the diagnosis of acute cerebrovascular disease. Data was obtained by the researchers through the examination of nursing observation and record forms.

Results: The mean age of the patients was 64,21 ± 15,16. Among 43 patients, total length of hospital stay was 539 days, and the mean length was 12.5 days. Nurses regularly recorded body temperature, blood pressure, pulse, respiration, O2 saturation, intake-output, and hourly urine.

Conclusions: Documenting nursing care is necessary for obtaining knowledge and managing nursing care. While nurses regularly and fully record medicine applications and vital sign monitoring results, the records pertaining to their care interventions are insufficient. Nursing records should be organized and full in order to ensure the continuity of the care provided and to increase the quality of nursing care.

Key Words: Intensive care nursing, Intensive care nurses, nurse-patient ratio

Introduction

The population of the world, especially in developed countries, is getting older, with the population above 65 years of age increasing fast. In the last century, causes of death have enormously changed with the population getting older and the developments in medicine. The rate of deaths related to infectious diseases have decreased and deaths caused by chronic diseases, especially in the older population, have increased. According to the projections, the five most common causes of death in the year 2020 were suggested to be ischemic heart diseases, cerebrovascular diseases (CVD), chronic obstructive lung disease, lower respiratory tract infections, and lung cancer (Aydogan & Uygun, 2011). According to the 2012 data of the Turkish Institute of Statistics, the most common cause of death was circulatory system diseases with a rate of 37.9%, while cerebrovascular diseases took the second place among such circulatory diseases, causing 25.7% of deaths.

Background

In cerebrovascular diseases, the risk of mortality is high, especially in the acute phase....

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