Today our topic of discussion is Preoperative Nursing Care.
Preoperative Nursing Care
PREOPERATIVE NURSING CARE
Preoperative nursing is based on the nurses understanding of several important characteristics including high quality multidisciplinary teamwork, effective and therapeutic, communication, and collaboration with the client, clients family and the surgical team.
Purpose
- Preoperative nursing care is the care given to the patient before surgery
- Preoperative period for different type surgery is different, e.g. for emergency surgery preoperative period is very short; for a planned surgery time for surgery, is fixed with the mutual consent of the surgeon and the patient.
- Preoperative care of the patient begins as soon as the surgeon makes with diagnosis and decides that an operation is necessary for the patient.
Preparation of the Patient before Surgery
- Psychological Preparation
- The patient may tensed about his surgery because of ignorance, feet, etc. the nurses should give psychological support to the patient.
- Discuss with the patient to give feel information about the surgery such as:
- Type of surgery Consequences of surgery
- The problems to be faced
- Expected duration of hospitalization
- Expected time of resuming duty Cost of surgery
- Treatment done before surgery and if purpose.
- Necessary arrangements to be made about the family, financial matters, work hospitalization, etc.
- Eradicate Fear of Operation from the Patient
- The means surgery/operation itself make fear to the patient so for reducing that fear the nurses should:
- Allow the patient to ask questions and clear all his doubts
- Introduce the patient to some ones who had similar surgeries and successfully recovered from the symptoms
- Explain what happens during anesthesia
- Explain how to get rid of pain after surgery Tell the patient when he can have meals
- Answer all questions soaked by the patients in a language he can understand
- Let the patient see the persons, places and equipment involved in the operation
- Always short the procedures with an example
- For many patients, their admission to the hospital is a experience in their times. In such situation, the nurses should make them feel at home in by eradicating their fear.
Obtain Informed Consent
- The nurses should get an informed consent from patient/guardian for each operation.
- Never compel them to give their consent.
- They should understand the language used in the consent form.
- Explain the complications that may occur in the period of anesthesia.
Build up the General Health of the Patient and Correction of the Disease Process for Speedy Recovery
- Assist the doctor to carry out thorough physical examination
- Arrange for the blood donors
- Diet may be adjusted to correct underweight/overweight of the patient.
Preoperative Teaching
- We should teach the patient to increase his health by giving advices like (a) stop smoking, (b) Maintain personal hygiene, (c) deep breathing and coughing exercises: active and passive exercise.
- Surgical Preparation of the Skin
- Skin preparation helps reduce the number of microorganisms present on skin and thus reduce the possibility of wound infection.
- Shave the area and clean the area with spirit/ swab.
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