No abstract

Despite increasing preventive efforts, pressure injury still occurs in intensive care patients. This study was aimed to describe pressure injury prevalence, risk factors, and prevention practices in adult intensive care patients. This was a multi‐centre, one‐day, prospective point prevalence study in which a total of 198 intensive care units from 21 provinces in China participated. Overall and ICU‐acquired prevalence in intensive care patients were 12.26% and 4.31%, respectively. Consistent with earlier reports, almost half of the ICU‐acquired pressure injuries were at stage I, one‐fourth were at stage 2, and the most common body sites for pressure injuries were sacral and heel region. Risk factors identified were consistent with prior studies. Repositioning was the most commonly used pressure injury prevention strategy, followed by alternating pressure mattresses/overlays, floating heels, and air‐filled mattresses/overlays. These reflect a good level of adherence to recommended international pressure injury prevention clinical practice guidelines. The results provide a baseline reference for overall and ICU‐acquired prevalence among adult intensive care patients in China. Future research on what contributed to the lower pressure injury incidence in China needs to be conducted to inform healthcare organisations on their future preventive strategies for pressure injury prevention.

The findings provide information for health professionals to understand children's psychological status during hospitalization and help nurses to plan individualized psychological care for children.

Aims To explore Registered Nurses' approaches to pressure injury prevention, including how they perceive their roles, how they prioritize pressure injury prevention and factors influencing prevention in the Chinese context. Design A qualitative descriptive study. Methods Audio‐recorded, face‐to‐face, semi‐structured individual interviews were conducted with Registered Nurses in a large tertiary hospital in China from August to December 2020. Using the System Engineering Initiative for Patient Safety Model, the interview guide was developed to describe the work system, processes and outcomes (three domains) associated with nurses' pressure injury prevention practices. Deductive and inductive content analyses were used. Findings Twenty‐seven nurses participated in the interviews. Four themes related to two domains of the model emerged: Work system: (i) Nurses lead and coordinate pressure injury prevention; Work processes: (ii) Individualized pressure injury prevention is founded on comprehensive patient assessment; (iii) Collaborating ensures patients receive appropriate pressure injury prevention; and (iv) Competing factors influence the delivery of appropriate pressure injury prevention. One category emerged about work outcome: Nurses strive to do their best in pressure injury prevention but hold major concerns when pressure injuries occur. Conclusions Nurses play a leading role in pressure injury prevention delivery but require appropriate resources and assistance and support from other healthcare personnel, patients and carers. Understaffing, lack of resources, complex reporting and poor patient compliance challenge nurses in their delivery of pressure injury prevention. Impact Pressure injury prevention is primarily a nursing responsibility therefore nurses' approaches to prevention were explored. Nurses rely on collaboration with others and access to various resources to provide pressure injury prevention. They recognize the patients' and carers' roles and acknowledge the importance of accessing guidance and support from nursing leaders and wound experts. Acknowledging nurses leading role in prevention and ensuring they have adequate resources are important for quality care.

Many factors may influence symptoms of the menopause. We found that menopausal status was most strongly associated with most menopausal symptoms, especially hot flashes and sweating. Psychosocial factors also played an important role. A higher frequency of sexual activity negatively correlated with most menopausal symptoms.

Pressure injuries are frequently occurring adverse events in hospitals, negatively impacting patient safety and quality of care. Most pressure injuries are avoidable if effective prevention strategies are used. However, the extent to which various settings influence their use of prevention strategies is unknown. The aim of this study was to describe and compare pressure injury prevention strategies used by medical and surgical nurses in the Chinese context. In this observational study, we used semi‐structured observations with chart audits to collect data in two medical and two surgical wards in a tertiary hospital from June to December 2020. Observations were patient‐focused; any prevention practices the patient received were recorded, and a chart audit was used to identify documented prevention strategies. The frequency of each prevention strategy was reported, and differences between medical and surgical wards were analysed using independent t ‐test or χ 2 test. A total of 577 patients (n = 294, 50.9% medical; n = 283, 49.1% surgical) were observed and their charts audited. Risk assessment was completed on admission for all patients. Repositioning was the most frequently used strategy, with about 84% (n = 486) patients being repositioned regularly. However, skin care, nutritional risk screening and the use of support surfaces were suboptimal. Patient education was not commonly observed but was documented in 75% (n = 433) of audited charts. More medical patients' skin was kept clean and hydrated, but more surgical patients received barrier creams, had a support surface and received more nutrition support and if a prone position was used, they were more likely to be turned after 2 hr and to be repositioned after sitting in a chair for an hour. Prevention strategies were more likely to be documented in surgical patients' charts. Despite pressure injury prevention guideline recommendations provided various prevention strategies for nurses to apply, the observed use of some strategies such as nutrition, skin care and support surfaces was not ideal. Nurses relied heavily on repositioning for pressure injury prevention. Most pressure injury prevention practices need improvement although surgical patients generally received better preventative care. These findings can facilitate clinicians and nurse managers when tailoring future pressure injury prevention work.

No abstract

Aims and objectives To compare the safety of replacing peripheral intravenous catheter as clinically indicated versus routine replacement on patient outcomes in the Chinese context. Background Some evidence from developed countries recommend replacing peripheral intravenous catheter as clinically indicated; however, there is limited evidence from developing countries. Design A multisite randomised controlled trial. Methods The 3050 participants from three hospitals in China were randomly assigned to clinically indicated or routine replacement groups. Patients in the clinically indicated group had the catheters kept in situ until any of the following clinical signs appeared: phlebitis, infiltration, occlusion, displacement, local infection and diagnosed catheter‐related bloodstream infection. Patients in the routine replacement group had their peripheral intravenous catheters replaced every 96 hours. The outcomes of phlebitis, infiltration, occlusion, displacement; catheter‐related bloodstream infection, all‐cause bloodstream infection, and local infection were compared. CONSORT checklist was used to guide the reporting of this RCT. Results The risk of phlebitis, phlebitis per 1000 catheter days, occlusion, dislodgement, all bloodstream infections, local infection and mortality between the two groups were not significantly different. The risk of infiltration was increased in the clinically indicated group (HR 1.29). There was no catheter‐related bloodstream infection reported in either group. Patients’ first peripheral intravenous catheter dwelling time and cumulative indwelling time of all peripheral intravenous catheters in the clinically indicated group were significantly longer than the routine replacement group. There was no statistical significant difference in survival times from phlebitis between the two groups. Conclusions In the Chinese context, removing peripheral catheters as clinical indicated did not increase the risk of phlebitis, occlusion, catheter displacement and catheter infection; however, there was an increased infiltration incidence. Relevance to clinical practice In developing countries, removing peripheral catheters as clinical indicated is feasible, but more frequent observations of infiltration are highly recommended.