Purpose: This is an analysis of the experiences of nurses in Post Anesthesia Care Units (PACUs) in caring for older patients with emergence delirium using the Q-methodology. Methods: The Q-methodology, which is used to explore and understand human subjectivity, was applied. Thirty nurses who had experiences in providing nursing for delirium in older patients after surgery in a PACU participated in this study. Results: This study revealed three factors regarding the frame of reference of PACU nurses in detecting and managing older patients' emergence delirium: “detect the deviant changes leading to instability”, “focus on the patient’s degree of cognitive recovery within the framework of recovery time”, and “awareness of possible clues based on the patient’s underlying disease(s)”. Conclusion: These findings are expected to be utilized as a basis for more practical and accessible PACU nurse delirium education that reflects nurses’ subjective viewpoints explained by the three identified factors.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.