As a practicing nurse or nursing student, you may have heard of critical care nursing. You might have a little idea of what it is all about. That leads you to search “What are critical care nursing” This article will discuss in details critical care nursing by giving definitions of key terms, sample topics, and more in-depth information.
Many instructors ask nursing students to write a paper on acute and critical care nursing. As a beginner student, it might be difficult for you to write an essay on this topic unless you have conducted research. This could be tiring and time-consuming. In this paper, we will discuss the things that you need to know about critical care nursing. For any kind of assistance concerning your assignment, we are a chat away.
What is critical care nursing?
Critical care nursing is a discipline within nursing that specializes in human responses to life-threatening problems. Critical care nurses are also referred to as ICU nurses. ICU nurses can work in different hospital settings, such as coronary care units, general intensive care units, medical intensive care units, surgical intensive care units, trauma intensive care units, cardiothoracic intensive care units, and some trauma center emergency departments.
Critical care nursing is essential in a hospital setting because it helps cater to the needs of ill patients and their families to receive optimal care. Critically ill patients suffer from life-threatening medical problems such as cardiac disease, brain injuries, accident victims, and patients recovering from complex surgeries.
These conditions require frequent monitoring, and they generally need tubes to assist with breathing and medications to regulate their blood pressure. The ICU unit could not function without a critical care nursing team.
How do you Qualify to join critical care nursing?
Aspiring ICU nurses must become registered nurses to join intensive and critical care nursing. You can graduate with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing and or associate degree in Nursing and meet state requirements to get a nursing license. Given the intense nature of critical care nursing, as a fresh critical care nurse, or a practicing student, you may prefer to gain the experience first or at least a better feel for the work. You can begin with job shadowing.
What are the everyday duties of a critical care nurse?
Critical care nurses assist critical physicians with procedures such as endoscopy, bronchoscopy, endotracheal intubation, and elective cardioversion on patients that require increased ventilatory support.
Like all registered nurses, critical care nurses provide essential medical services like:
- Monitoring and evaluating major signs, administering medication, reacting to changes in a patient’s condition, and using various technical and medical equipment.
- Prioritize nursing care, continuously evaluate the patient’s resources, and systematically perform measures to maintain, strengthen or restore functional capacity on the assigned critically ill patients.
- Monitor and record symptoms and changes in patient conditions and information to the Physician and consult with the whole healthcare team about the patient care plans.
- Acting as a patient advocate. Critical care nurses deal with the most vulnerable patients. They must respect the directives and rights of the patient at times when they may not be able to communicate or represent themselves.
- Providing education and support to patient families. Critical care nurses ensure that the patient and their loved ones understand the complexities and realities of their medical condition and potential outcomes to make the most informed choices.
Dimensions of critical care nursing
- Pediatric Intensive Care Unit
This is where critically ill infants and children receive the highest quality pediatric care in a hospital setting. Complex postoperative monitoring and care for infants with pediatric congenital heart surgery are not possible in a regular pediatric ward.
In the pediatric Intensive Care Unit, the critical care nurse regularly assesses the temperature, airways, breathing, blood pressure, and blood circulation. Any changes will enable the nurse to identify and diagnose the problem immediately.
2. Hospital Emergency Rooms
This is where patients with acute emergencies receive immediate critical care nursing treatment. An urgent care nurse will take the patient’s medical history and briefly examine their symptoms. The nurse prioritizes the patient level based on their medical history and current condition according to the following scale: Resuscitation, emergency, urgent, Semi-urgent, or non-urgent.
Sometimes, the critical care nurse must start diagnostic testing to reduce the time spent waiting for medical treatment. The critical care nurse should be keen should the symptoms worsen as the patient waits. Take the patient to the triage room should their condition get worse. Do not allow more than one person to accompany them.
3. Intensive Care Units (ICU)
ICU cares for people in the unstable stage of life-threatening conditions, such as severe injury or illness. They receive around-the-clock critical care nursing through monitoring and life support in the ICU. The ICU can accommodate individuals who have had a cardiac emergency, like a heart attack or sudden stoppage of their heart, or critically ill or injured elderly patients.
While the underlying cause of illness is being treated, the critical care nursing team ensures that the body functions and the condition are stabilized. This could be done by monitoring the temperatures, pulse rate, and blood pressure or by putting on a ventilator to help the patient breathe if they can’t breathe independently.
4. A step-down unit
Patients who must be on a cardiac monitor are taken to a step-down unit. These patients are stable but may require critical care nursing and monitoring because they have some potential to become unstable. The majority of these patients end up being heart patients.
5. The Trauma and Burn Intensive Care Unit
These units provide critical care for burn and trauma patients requiring intensive therapeutic interventions resulting from the injuries. Other than the critical care nursing team, there are crucial care physicians, wound care experts, orthopedic surgeons, dieticians, neurosurgeons, vascular surgeons, social workers, radiologists, cardiologists, and rehabilitation specialists in this unit.
They tailor care to the individual needs of each critically ill patient. This could be surgical care treatment, burn surgery, or plastic surgery for gunshot wounds, third-degree burns, or for patients involved in fatal accidents.
Are you searching for Critical Care Nursing Research Topics?
Critical care nursing is an evolving field. We’ve got you if you are looking for critical care nursing research topics. We have a good list of the latest critical care nursing topics. You can apply them for your undergrad and master’s critical care nursing program papers. Similarly, we list topics from other disciplines like marketing, psychology, management, and human resources if you want. We can also help you in handling your paper on time and efficiently.
Here are some critical care nursing research topics and titles for nursing students from any academic level. Opt for the critical care nursing topics of your choice and start writing your papers in nursing. Alternatively, you can hire our professional services to customize critical care nursing research topics.
- Risk factors of pressure injuries among critically ill ICU patients.
- Analyzing and evaluating the importance of timing in critical care nursing units.
- Understanding the essentials of critical care nursing- a literature review.
- Do nurses face problems with visitors? How do they cause disturbance?
- Critical nursing analysis in the past 10 years- Literature review
- Analyzing the strategies of management of patients suffering from dementia.
- Case analysis of the US. Maintaining professional habits in the intensive care system.
- Quick examination and plans for patients above the age of 50 years.
- Do you think visitors should be allowed in intensive care units?
- Examination of the nurse’s perspective on essential visitors of the patient.
- Necessary care education is vital among critical nurses – a cross-country analysis.
- A case scenario analysis-The difference between planned and emergency surgeries
- The research on Ventilator-associated ill patients and their importance in health care facilities.
- Challenges encountered by the critical care nursing system
- A critical analysis of key challenges nurses face in ICU
- Study on care in a technologically challenging work environment.
- Study on the challenges facing patients with heart failure in the primary health care units.
- Equipment used for training the nurses in the critical care units.
- The importance of intensive and urgent care in the nursing field.
- Why Should nurses prescribe medicines to critical patients?
- A case analysis on the status of psychological aid in ICU patients.
- The miscommunication between the nurses and Physicians in the intensive care unit.
- Communicate between the caregivers and the critical patients in the ICU.
- How do nurses manage covid’19 acute patients?
- Issues faced by healthcare workers during the covid’19 period
- Was the personal life of critical care nurses affected by the covid situation?
- What was the real condition of the critical care nursing department during the COVID-19 pandemic?
- What is the importance of job satisfaction in a nursing career?
- Does low pay demotivate nurses?
- What are the problems that nurses face while decision-making for patients?
- A survey analysis of how nurses make end-of-life decisions?
- Spiritual wellness survey.
- A comparison between good critical thinking and effectiveness in decision-making in critical nurse’s care?
- What is the impact of a good relationship between nurse and patient in the intensive care unit?
- Define burnout syndrome, and explain how it affects the quality-of-care nurses offer.
- What measures must nurses take instantly to manage open wounds in urgent patient care?
- Is a nurse’s private life affected by the patient’s outcome?
- Do Males and females get different types of critical care?
Critical Care Nursing Case Studies Examples
Some of the Critical Care Nursing Case Studies Examples Include:
- Case study on causes and effects of burnout patients in critical care.
- Case Study on doing critical care nurses accomplish resilience.
- Case Study on physical and psychological stress among health care workers.
- Case study on post-traumatic effect system for the nurses after a patient’s death.
- Low income in ICU nurses and how it affects their work attitude and motivation
- Case Study on the role of nurses in nutritional care to acute care patients
- Case Study on the patients with HIV/AIDs and how nurses play their role.
Evidence-Based Practice Topics in Critical Care Nursing
Evidence-based practice topics in critical care nursing discuss the safest care provided by healthcare professionals. Evidence-based practice uses current knowledge and the best evidence to decide how to care for critically ill patients. This means that research is performed by nursing experts on intensive and critical care nursing for patients in ways that ensure the best patient outcomes. This information is published and disseminated to current critical care nurses through education, practice, and published literature.
Some examples of evidence-based practice in critical care nursing include:
- Implementing measures to reduce impaired skin risks by using heel and elbow protectors and keeping skin clean and dry.
- Avoiding frequently scheduled ventilator circuit changes. Frequent scheduled ventilator circuit changes can increase the risk of ventilator-acquired pneumonia.
- Administering oxygen to a client with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)
Critical Care Nursing Thesis Topics
The critical care nursing thesis topics include:
- Is it Time to Change our Methods? Safe and Efficient Vital Signs-
- Combating Compassion Fatigue Among Emergency Department Nurses.
- Preventing 30-Day Readmission for Patients with Heart Failure.
- Reducing Delirium in the ICU: Implementing a Sleep Protocol.
- Challenges encountered by the critical care nursing system
- Providing critical care in rural areas. An insight into a critical care nursing provider’s experience
- Ethical and legal dilemmas
- Emotions and feelings in critical care nursing.
- The challenges of nursing students in critical learning
- Intensive care unit challenges
- Current issues in ICU
Critical Care Nursing Care Plan
Creating care nursing plans for clients is based on preventing complications during the healing process. Performing an accurate nursing assessment allows the nursing staff to manage the patient’s pain and prevent complications. In emergency trauma care, basics include triage, evaluation and maintaining the airway, breathing, and circulation, protecting the cervical spine, and assessing the level of consciousness.
Critical Care Nursing Care Plan Examples could include fracture nursing care plans, heart failure nursing care plans, geriatric nursing care plans, and bowel incontinence nursing care plans, among others.
Understanding the essentials of critical care nursing and the whole critical care nursing concept can be overwhelming for students or critical care nursing beginners. As the population increases, more time and dedication are expected from critical care nurses. Taking care of the needs of critically ill patients in intensive care units can be overwhelming for nurses. The pressure that comes with working in the critical care nursing department can lead to mental disorders or physical illnesses.
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