Development of Nursing Protocol for Preventing Interruptions during Clinical Examinations and Treatments in the Early Days of Hospitalization for Acute Exacerbation of Chronic Heart Failure in Patients with Impaired Cognitive Function

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to prepare a nursing protocol for preventing interruptions during clinical examinations and treatments performed in the early days of hospitalization for acute exacerbation of chronic heart failure in patients with impaired cognitive function. For the first stage of the research, we prepared a draft of the nursing protocol based on a basic survey. For the second stage, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 5 nurses specialized in chronic heart failure and 11 nurses in dementia care to ensure content validity of the draft protocol. For the third stage, we examined the possibility of clinical application of the revised version of the protocol draft prepared in the second stage of the study. For assessment items, significant points of nursing care, and specific nursing care practice in this revised version, 73 subjects (84.9%) considered effective for patients, in terms of prevention of interruptions during clinical examinations and treatments in the early days of hospitalization. All items and contents were considered useful by more than 60% of the nurses. Considering that the nurses working in the clinical setting reported 84.9% of usefulness, we concluded that this nursing protocol remained valid at a certain level. We consider that this nursing protocol will be useful especially for newly graduated/employed nurses as a procedure manual which can reduce their anxiety or stress caused by lack of knowledge or experiences.